I watched RocknRolla last night. A good movie but I think there’s a plot hole.
A spoiler warning for those who haven’t see the movie.
Okay, Stella the accountant was betraying Yuri the Russian gangster by giving the Wild Bunch the information about the money transfers. Yuri didn’t want to consider this possibility (despite Victor’s warnings) because he was attracted to Stella.
One of the other plots of the movie was Yuri had his lucky painting stolen and by a series of coincidences Stella ended up in possession of it. The irony was that Yuri caught her with the painting and believed she was guilty of stealing it from him, when she was actually innocent of that.
So plot hole #1: Yuri was really proud of his painting and liked showing it off. Stella worked for him and he was trying to impress her. So how plausible is it that Yuri would have never shown the painting to Stella? Realistically, she should have recognized it as soon as she saw it in One Two’s apartment. But it was clear from her conversation with Yuri that she had no idea it was his painting.
Plot hole #2: How did Yuri not know this? Even if he assumed Stella had learned about his painting from somebody else, it should have been obvious to him from what she said that she had no idea that it was his stolen painting. If she had known it was his painting and he had caught her, she would have tried to tell some plausible lie - or even the implausible truth. But she clearly wasn’t acting like somebody who had just been caught red handed.
So was it just a plot hole or am I missing something? Was there some other element involved that I overlooked? Or were we suppose to assume that Yuri was so upset about finding Stella with his painting he just wasn’t thinking rationally? Or were we supposed to figure out that seeing his painting made Yuri realize that Victor had been right and Stella had betrayed him over the stolen money?
It’s just not a very good movie, IMO. Guy Ritchie pretty much blew it with this one. So yeah, plot hole. Huge bit of “please just suspend disbelief and keep watching because the characters are so compelling and it’s so gritty (and shit)”.
I’d have to watch it again (I saw it in the theatre when it was released, which was 4 years ago) to comment on everything that I didn’t like, but my main beef, IIRC, was that the plot was so convoluted as to allow plot holes, where normally, Ritchie uses the convolution to sew up the plot holes.
There seemed to be a lot of completely unnecessary and superfluous characters and events, in particular I remember thinking that about the recording studio guys; it seemed like an excuse to have Ludacris & Piven on screen rather than anything that was really necessary, and menacing them was pointless.
I also just generally have a dislike for what I think of as “Shakespearian it’s-all-a-family-fued/blood-brothers-as-enemies” type of situations, and this movie was centered around that, so I’m sure that colored my perception.
Some of the movie was fun: I loved Stella, thought the bits with One Two and Handsome Bob were fun, and think Tom Wilkinson is awesome (he’s one of my favorite actors).
But mostly the movie seemed to me like Ritchie was trying to apply the patented Ritchie formula and mostly failing at it.
Personally, I thought it worked. Yes, the plot was certainly convoluted but that was the point - Ritchie is one of those filmmakers who likes to throw a dozen balls up in the air and then show off by juggling them. He may have slipped up with a couple (the issue I mentioned in the OP and never explaining why Cookie bought the painting) but they were minor and overall I think he brought it off. (I have a simple test of whether a plot hole is excusable or not - an excusable plot hole is one I don’t notice while I’m watching the movie. If I’m thinking the director screwed up while I’m still in the theatre, then the plot hole was bad.) I liked the characters and the various set pieces (like the battle with the Russians or the van scene with One Two and Handsome Bob or the three-second sex scene with Stella and One Two). To me, this was Ritchie playing to his strengths and doing what he does well.
Yuri loaned the painting in order to obligate Lenny. It actually may or may not have been a favorite, but it was a to used to establish trust in a business relationship, just like the engraved lighter Lenny gave to to the lawyer. Stella the accountant would have been impressed enough by Yuri’s money and power. Yuri’s partner mentioned that women were Yuri’s weakness and he had been taken before; he really didn’t need to think it through. Finding her in possession of his property was enough reason to fetch the gloves.
I love this movie and laughed all the way through it. Cookie bought whatever the junkies stole in order to turn a profit. Remember the fur coat scene?
I like your juggling comment, Little Nemo. Each of the characters is a caricature so the addition of a few random thugs and patsys (patsies?) in the underworld seems fitting. Piven and Ludacris are bumbling American innocents in over their heads. We need them to give up the location of Johnny, who was more likely to be found around a drug scene than to keep up with the terms of a recording contract.
I thought the party scene was brilliant, and OneTwo’s fight scene and kidnapping hilarious. Really disappointed we’ll probably never see part two.
Missed edit window; really shouldn’t post when incoherent due to insomnia. That post is all over the place, sorry. Meant to say I prefer my Americans in Guy Ritchie movies to add a little irony or star power, and I’m glad they didn’t attempt the accent. I’ve never been able to decide if Brad Pitt’s subtitles in Snatch are embarrassing or hilarious. On the other hand, if you can find Ritchie’s BMW film The Hire, you will find James Brown’s subtitles fitting and pee-pants funny. The Hire - Wikipedia
But we saw that Stella hadn’t fallen for Yuri’s money and power; she had been fending him off and he kept trying harder to impress her.
However you raised a good point. It may not have had anything to do with the painting or the money. It may have been Stella telling Yuri she had owned the painting for years, when he knew that wasn’t possible. He may have been angry that he had just opened himself up and asked her to marry him and then she was casually lying to him seconds later. It was the lie not the theft that he saw as a betrayal.
But with the fur coats, the junkies had to go through their entire act. With the painting, Cookie bought the painting immediately and apparently without any concern for its cost. He didn’t haggle or even ask for a price, he just threw a roll of money at the junkies.
Now that would make sense if Cookie recognized it as Yuri’s painting. He would have known he’d be highly rewarded for returning it. And it was plausible: Cookie was one of the people out looking for the painting.
But once he had the painting, Cookie didn’t send it to Yuri. He gave it to One Two, presumably as a thank-you gift for getting invited to the party, where he met a bunch of new customers.