Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: Analysis

Directed by Guy Ritchie in 1998, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is set around 4 friends – Soap, Tom, Bacon and Eddy. After involving themselves in a card game owned by Harry Lonsdale, also known as ‘Hatchet Harry’ the four men become massively in debt after the card game was rigged, owing Harry the sum of £100,000. The film is set around their struggle to find a solution to obtain the money to pay back the debt and how they are led into even more trouble when they overhear the thieves next door talking of cannabis growers who have a huge amount of drugs and money stashed in their apartment. With this new information, Eddy decides that himself, Bacon, Tom and Soap will rob the neighbors once they return from their heist – giving a kick-start to their repayment to Hatchet Harry when retrieving the money and selling the drugs onto Rory Breaker – without Eddy knowing that the thief neighbors were actually employers of Rory’s and lands them into even more trouble. After learning that in-fact Eddy and his gang stole from them, the thieves decide to get revenge and ambush Eddy’s flat whilst they are out celebrating. When arriving at the flat, Rory and other drug manufactures are already there and begin to have a shoot-out, with many of the gang members dying exact for Dog and Winston, who retrieve the money, drugs and the antique guns desired by Harry, but are stopped by Chris – who works for Hatchet Harry, which ends up with them being killed due to a confrontation with the wrong people (Gary and Dean, the thieves who originally stole the guns for Harry). When arriving at Harry’s office to pay off the money and apologies to Harry for the inconvenience, they arrive to find Harry and Baptist lying dead with the guns and decide to take the money and guns for themselves, but when planning their escape, are stopped by Chris, as he crashes into Dog’s car, in turn knocking his friends Eddy, Tom, Bacon and Soap out. Chris then retrieves the money from his friends whilst they are unconscious, leaving them with the guns. Eddy and his crew are then arrested and let out for bail, but decide to rid of the guns are they see them as the only piece of evidence connecting them with the case. Sending Tom out on a mission to get rid of the guns, the gang are presented with a catalo containing antique guns, showing that without them knowing, the guns were worth a fortune. As Tom is about to drop the guns in the River off a bridge, they ring him desperately, with Tom’s phone in his mouth ignoring the call.

This film is clearly a multi-strand, as rather than one main character or group’s life being focused on throughout the film; we are presented with many. For instance, the cannabis growers, Eddy’s crew, Dog’s crew and Harry’s crew were focused on individually, e.g. shots where opposing sides were talking about one another were seen, where there is no real sense of who is in the right or wrong, which shows they all have an equal contribution to the story as they are shown individually, which when each strand or ‘gang’ put together, makes up the narrative. If this was a single strand narrative, we would see one of the characters, e.g. Tom, centralized, with a back story and more emphasis on his importance to the story line and the other characters taking a backseat, where their contribution to the narrative would be less of an impact to the audience, contrasting to how much Tom’s importance to the narrative would be. The film is quite clearly non-linear, as throughout we are presented with past and present, rather a sequential narrative - which means that the time is in order rather than mixed up, like in this film. This is evident from the use of techniques such as discolouring of the picture to show what we are seeing is older than the footage we see throughout the majority of the film and the character's referring in dialog to past scenarios. The climax within the film is evident when the equilibrium is present - at the moment in which Chris retrieves the money which is rightfully his, when Eddy and his crew are given the guns, without realizing that they too have profited from this and with Harry being killed, who is the centre of all the trouble due to his connections with all of the gangs. This climax is important to the narrative, as the equilibrium is restored (everything has gone back to normal) e.g. Eddy and gang won't profit from the guns as Tom dispersed of them, so end up back in the same situation as before they involved themselves with Hatchet Harry. Although saying this, the climax with Tom hanging over the bridge with the phone in his mouth, the audience are left to assume what happens next rather than actually knowing, which I feel is a good way to leave the story as the effect of the film lasts longer on the audience and the narrative can end in anyway they intend on. 

The first and most important code convention used to imply the genre is that of the use of violence and language. Violence, especially within the gangster genre, is the most occurring theme and convention meaning that without this core convention, the genre would have less clarity as well as it being harder for the audience to understand the narrative. Language used in this film is such as swearing, which relates to the violence and the genre of the film. This also shows that the certificate would be higher than say 12A, due to the violence and language combined. For instance, within Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, violence is used to progress the story line, such as at the end when Hatchet Harry is killed by Dog, we see the most important part of the narrative take place - the money and guns being retrieved and Chris getting what was rightfully his. Without Dog killing Harry, this scenario would have been very different, as Chris would have no got his money as well the guns, which are a huge cliff-hanger at the end when Tom is asked to get rid of them and the climax of the film would not have been created.

Technical convention wise, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels has quite a few; such as the camera angles and shots used - such as mid to long shots, to show the character's in the scene (as there is usually more than one character in the scenes as they are shown as gang members) and would need to show the location which they are in to grasp knowledge of the narrative and who is involved in the particular scene we are being showed. As well as this, flash backs have been used for progression of the narrative, as without them we wouldn't know the back-story to particular characters or even what led them into the situations they landed themselves in, such as Eddy and his gang. The flashbacks are evident through the use of visual discolouration, as the footage set in present day is vibrant and modern looking, where as the footage set in the past is discoloured to symbolize age. This helps the audience understand the genre as usually within gangster genre films, we see old footage where the character or in this case characters begin, to where they are now, as conventionally, in gangster films the character starts from the bottom, has a rise of power or fame then is presented with a downfall, which we could apply to Eddy and his gang as they basically ended where they started. Unconventional for a gangster genre film, there are many times where this film could be classed as a comedy, as the language used is entertaining and the characters within the film are joking around quite a lot of the time, but rather than being genre specific, the humour is just an element contributing to the themes in the film. Using humour in this film can be seen as showing binary oppositions (serious vs. comedy), as when both are visible together we see how much they contrast against one another, making the themes make more of an impact on the audience. The use of comedy I feel has been done to create a diversion for the film, as at some parts of the film, the situation becomes overly – serious, comedy can be used to lessen the serious nature of the scenario, as well as adding a depth of different forms of entertainment within the film.

Within Stock, Lock and Two Smoking Barrels, the representation of women is generally portrayed to the audience as if they are weak and only needed for sexual objectification (which we see at the beginning of the film where the women are seen in the strip club). This relates to the fact that there are no leading female characters within the film - which actually says more about the representation as to if they were to have a lead female character in the film as it is to say that because there is violence and a sense of strength within the film when looking to the characters, who are all male, and that women cannot be seen the same way. Women are stereo-typically seen as the weaker sex, whereas men are seen as the dominant ideology, especially within this film as they fall under the ideology, which is of a white middle-aged man. Relating to the target audience, who I feel would be men from the ages 16 and up, if there were to have strong female characters in lead roles, it would not appeal to them as much as they are not seeing versions of themselves represented in the film and would not find the film as interesting due to this. Saying this, the men within this film have been represented as very fowl mouthed and violent and we do not see a variety of characters as each of them has a part in violence, which is another stereotype. The target audience generally feel as though they can relate to the people they are watching e.g. a young impressionable male may feel pressured to act a certain way due to this, which we could apply the hypodermic needle theory to as it may have a psychological effect on them, due to not understanding the way the individual is acting on screen is not reality. I feel the target audience for this film would be men from the ages 16+ of white ethnicity, as the themes such as comedy and violence are those of interest of young men and stereo-typically, men enjoy scenes of violence more than women. When concentrating on the ethnicity of the audience, I think they would be white as the majority of the characters within the film are white and act in a very common and English manor, which may be more understood by an audience, which replicates the character. Their interests would range from being fans of classic gangster films, American and English, and the actors within the film such as Vinnie Jones, who are very popular actors especially within this genre of film. As well as this, I feel the audience will have an interest in a particular type of music, due to the music within the film, which are generally indie/rock bands, which are heard within it. Another thing, which may be of interest of the target audience, is the director, Guy Ritchie, as they may be familiar with their work and know what to expect from films from this particular Director. 

Violence within this film is extremely important helping the audience identify the genre of film they are watching. In some scenes in particular, such as when Dog's crew fight with Rory's, which shows many people being killed in a very violent manor and when Chris smashes Dog's head between the car door. These scenes, although violent, have a sense of comedy to them as the characters present themselves in a less serious fashion compared to a gangster such as Tony Montana, who is feared within the film as he is seen as having no humanity and being ruthless when it comes to death, money and drugs. In Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, weapons such as knives and especially guns have been used as they represent the brutality of the character, as well as being a common convention within gangster films as weapons are associated with violence. The violence within this film, although effective, is different to how Scarface and City of God have used it. Firstly, the level of violence within Scarface and City of God is substantially more compared with Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, as the scenes include ones of a sensitive nature, like the death of children (City of God) and killing of a family member (Scarface), where as in this film the violence is not as dramatic and would not effect the audience is a manor as serious as the other films, due to the use of comedy.