Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

A dynamite bundle from British writer-director Guy Ritchie. Even when the accents are as indecipherable as the plot, Ritchie keeps the action percolating and the humor on high.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Joshua Klein

The acting, mostly by a bunch of unknowns, is equally fresh and funny, and Ritchie keeps the movie moving faster than you can say, "bludgeoned to death by a 15-inch black rubber dildo."

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Dark, dangerous and a great deal of wicked, amoral fun. A film that manages to be as clever, playful and mock violent as its title, Lock, Stock was a major hit in its native Britain and its cheeky tone, simultaneously calculated and off the cuff, is as hip as anyone could want. [5 Mar 1999]

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

With such a frenetic, brain-melting load of images to ponder, it's easy to forget that there are also some terrific actors at work here, not the least of whom is the amazing Vinnie Jones.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

There are so many balls in the air in the cheerfully violent Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, you'll want to wear a helmet for fear they'll all come crashing down.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's a superior thriller made with the guts and gusto that too many recycled entries into the genre fail to exhibit.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

[Ritchie] cranks up the laughs and tension with equal aplomb, throwing wrenches in the plot so that the audience has no idea what to expect next -- and that's part of the film's thrill.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Much of the action is laugh-provoking, and even the plentiful violence is handled as comic by-play. The cast is revved up to sizzle, with Sting in a smallish role, and the thick cockney dialogue is more comprehensible than you might think.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is in the scabrous mode, and I like it better than "Trainspotting" -- it doesn't pretend its shenanigans are revolutionary.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

A special weapon unto itself. Spring-loaded with cockney esprit, it peppers its audience with aggressive, sarcastic grapeshot. That's English for "fun," by the way.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

A considerable kick, though it would have helped if one of the boys had wiped off the lens of the camera once in a while.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Ritchie appears to have been paying attention to what made "Reservoir Dogs" (a huge hit in the UK) work, rather than coming away convinced that the formula for success begins and ends with pop-culture allusions and scarcely digested "homages" to classic crime films.

New Times (L.A.) Michael Sgragow

Ritchie's showmanship--half macho braggadocio, half emotion-tinged bravura--slaps and tickles the viewer into submission. He takes a group of not-so-goodfellas, whose idea of fun is setting farts afire, and, against all odds, makes them lively and engaging.

Film Threat Ron Wells

Lock is filled with great writing, great acting, colorful characters, and a tight story. I actually like this film more than "Pulp Fiction".

Chicago Tribune John Petrakis

Plenty of fun, less for its many plot twists than for its large and varied assortment of vibrant characters. [12 Mar 1999]

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

If the dialect is hard to comprehend, that soon becomes part of the joke. It's unlikely that even the British audiences who made Lock, Stock a big hit got it all.

San Francisco Examiner Jane Ganahl

Flawed but scrappy, confusing yet exhilarating, the Brit-made Lock, Stock is far from a perfect movie. And it's not for anyone squeamish about violence. But it is, like Green Day, a rockin' good time.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

[It's] like Tarantino crossed with the Marx Brothers, if Groucho had been into chopping off fingers...Fun, in a slapdash way; it has an exuberance, and in a time when movies follow formulas like zombies, it's alive.

Film.com Gemma Files

One of the most consistently amusing ways in which it frustrates audience expectations has to do with how amazingly little of this very violent cast of characters' violence actually ends up being expressed onscreen.

Variety Derek Elley

Though Ritchie’s screenplay scores a 10 for sheer complexity and cleverness, it rates much lower down the scale for comprehensibility and audience involvement.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The film's lures, while undeniable, are synthetic, and we never do learn what fuels all the greed besides pints of beer.

USA Today Mike Clark

A half-funny, half-ugly comedy about underworld ineptitude. [5 Mar 1999]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The best one can say is that it's a smart cartoon, and a fairly exhausting viewing experience.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Flashy, random shifts of film speed and a true rogues' gallery of striking if one-note characters, do hold interest even if they have no real right to. The commercial aspects also deflect attention from the fact that this story has almost no center at all.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The humor is as crude as the characters, but the picture has energy.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Given its boundless sarcasm, running-jumping- standing-still ambience and hyperbolic Guignol violence, Lock, Stock aspires to be something like the Beatles meet the "Wild Bunch." Too bad it doesn't have even a rubber soul.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Blends extremes of violence and humor to create an irreverent tone that nullifies everything; the plot is so clever it crushes the characterization, making all the action seem perfunctory.

Slate David Edelstein

The laborious title of an even more laborious Cockney action movie that some people think is the cat's pajamas crossbred with the bee's knees.

Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams

It's supposed to be visually exciting, but the result is more like a corpse-strewn Gap khakis ad than a triumph of technique. At least, based on the film's grainy texture and amber lighting, it's nice to know that the guy who shot every porn movie released in the '70s appears to be working again.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

The tediously convoluted plot involves the foursome’s attempt to pay him back, a labored venture that involves crooks with names like Dog and Plank, a man on fire, some fine cinematography, plenty of gore though no real point.