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Screen Generation
A show covering the films distributed under Sony’s label Screen Gems. Join host Evan Hughes every week for commentary on films that are forgotten, and some that spawn franchises.
New episodes every Saturday
Screen Generation
Snatch
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Directed by Guy Ritchie. Starring Jason Statham, Dennis Farina and Vinnie Jones.
I've never been the best interviewer. Uh it's it's not something they can teach, it's something you learn. They teach active listening, posture, and presence for effective communication. They teach you how to be prepared for an interview. Joe Rogan did not go to school, and the host of Fear Factory doesn't give a shit what would make for a good interview. I tried to listen to his interview with Guy Ritchie ten minutes into a two-hour conversation, I had to tap out. Here's an example of what it's like going on the Joe Rogan experience.
SPEAKER_05The other thing about it, which is quite fun, is you can take these kind of mystical rides into metaphor. So you you can symbolize things with 300 foot elephants, which you can't do in some version of a realistic world. So it becomes you have a broad poetic license.
SPEAKER_04This show is presented by DraftKings this Saturday. The fight is on, and wherever you're watching.
SPEAKER_05Six weeks to shoot, two months to edit. So Snatch was three months to do the whole thing or to write it? The whole thing from the beginning to the getting to the end of six months.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow. Add's mid-sentence in between thoughts. He's interrupting Richie to ask him what he's explaining. You remember in school when the teacher would say, Hold questions until after instruction, because I'll probably answer them? Well, Joe Rogan doesn't remember, and he's particularly checked out because he could give a fuck about King Arthur. Now, we've all had a laugh at Guy Richie's expense, whether it be on a podcast.
SPEAKER_06But what's it about? Oh, it's a bit diamond. You know, like it's just a bunch of fucking nonsense. And I'm 14 years old, and I liked Snatch, but there were just people in my life who were like, there's pre-Snatch and there's post-snatch. Right? You know, like they were just like, this has changed my life. People have been snatched. I've never seen a man in a pork pie hat punch someone and say, like, lovely jubbly, you know. And now that's how I want to live my life.
SPEAKER_01Like that's what I want to live. It is an incredible summation of guy richie movies. Punch somebody and says lovely jubbly.
SPEAKER_02Or on an SNL skit.
SPEAKER_07Roy comes the toughest, grittiest, most British crime drama of the year. Don't go round round me, Row. Don't you go round and round to Rero. What?
SPEAKER_02But notice that his style is so recognizable that it lends itself to parody. It tells you how iconic this guy really is. Ladies and gentlemen, or Tots and Gov Nuts, my name's Evan Hughes. I'm the host of Screen Generation. It's a show about the films released by Sony under the label Screen Gems. Today we're talking about the second film directed by Guy Ritchie, Snatch. And this is why I do the show. The specific nature of this podcast will mean there are movies it's no business of mine to cover. I've made peace with not sharing my thoughts on films I consider prestigious. Nobody wants a TED talk on how Fellowship of the Ring is the first two acts of Jaws or Seven Samurai, Magnificent Seven, and a Bug's Life, or the originality of any story for that matter. But at the beginning of the show, I looked at the list and I knew I would have a good time discussing the career of Guy Ritchie. I don't think anyone in history has ever accused Guy Ritchie of being substance over style. Guy Ritchie, and I do credit Matthew Vaughn as well, both dug a well in 1998 and have consistently drawn from that well to varying degrees of success. In 98, Vaughn and Ritchie make lock stock in two smoking barrels for a million dollars, and it opens up every door in Hollywood. When it comes to making a second movie, there are options for studio projects that have been developed, but the fellows are like, I think we should go back to the well. And in the well is a plethora of pub folklore about the British underworld full of misadventures and misplaced items. In a little bit, we're gonna draw from the well and see what's inside, but in between Lockstock and two smoking barrels and snatch, Guy Ritchie kind of ceases to be a regular person. When shooting Lockstock, Sting, who has a cameo performance of like three scenes, invites him over for dinner, and Ritchie meets his future wife Madonna. This first-time director is being served supper by the bassist and lead singer of the police, and he's caught the eye of the Queen of Pop, who has been famous for 17 years at this point. By the time he's making the follow-up to Lockstock, they're adapting it to be a television show. It's like the world is massaging this guy's shoulders, and by his own admission, it makes him confident and lazy. Taking a moment to focus on Madonna, we will talk about her and Richie again on the show, and I'm not looking forward to that, but it's 2000 and Madonna is in an interesting place in her career. She's putting out a studio album just about every two years or so. I hope we all have the pleasure of forgetting the lackluster 2026 FIFA final halftime show as soon as possible, if not already. But Madonna is introduced in a very clearly pre-recorded roller rink sequence, and then she gets wheeled out on a truck bed and driven around the field. And the song choice. The song is Music from 2000, a famously pirated song on Napster. I remember the music video for the song Music as Sasha Baron Cohen as Oli G, and he won't be like a known name in the US for another three years. When that song started, I recognized it because I'm a dinosaur frozen in time. But there is no excuse for anyone under 34 to know that song, or Madonna for that matter. It kind of highlighted how out of touch we are when it comes to Western celebrities and how few we have with the star power to entertain the world. But the reason to use a 26-year-old song is after this time period, she becomes a celebrity, not a musician. Not making hits at least. Maybe the only thing that aged well in Get Em to the Greek is Rose Byrne as Jackie Q. Aldusnow and Jackie Q's relationship is undoubtedly based on Richie Madonna. She's a fashion icon, sex symbol, and she's passionate but dumb as a post. Here's Roseburn trying to get the Kabbalah line out without laughing, and it took her like 20 times.
SPEAKER_00I want to be clean with you. You're the love of my life. I've come to get you. Aldus, I've been doing Kabala. Sorry. I've been doing Kabala.
unknownSorry.
SPEAKER_00Kabbalah. It's an I'm sorry. Kabbalah. It's an ancient religion.
SPEAKER_02A big part of the show for me is I get to decide what to think about. When the world's a bit overwhelming, I'm allowed to focus my efforts, research, to form an opinion. This isn't the smartest mantra I rehearse, but being opinionated is exhausting. Time's taught me the power of indifference, and your taste will change with time, so I'm really glad I still like this movie. In 2020, Guy Ritchie sat down with the camera and watched Snatch for the first time in 15 years. Like me, he worried the charm would be lessened with time. But absence makes the heart grow fonder in this instance. A movie I've seen dozens of times as at an impressionable age, then took a decade off. It was like a fine aged bottle of wine when I returned to it. And this observation I can't compare with other movies. Even another movie with Brad Pitt punching face. I tried watching Fight Club when Blank Check was doing Fincher, and I was humiliated with what the 30-year-old me sees and what the 13-year-old didn't. Even reading the Plonic book, an angry little boy likes that movie, and a passive adult feels little for it. And the movie has a ton of parallels, but it doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth when you wax poetic about this one. In many ways, Guy Richie's a less problematic Fincher, or even the less gimmicky M. Night Shyamalan. And I compare him to M. Night Shyamalan because I think the career paths are pretty similar. Both experience instant stardom for early early films and then go through ups and downs. Sometimes they're for hire. Later in life, they return to their wells to justify the movie genres that they created. Last episode, I may have overstated how effective the power of charisma is to talent. I think Guy Richie's superpower is the power of indifference. Hey, there are enough adaptations of Sherlock Holmes. He does not care, he'll make two movies in a show. Nobody likes the live action remakes of Disney films. He does not care, he'll make the biggest Disney movie in history. Hey, you keep remaking the same movie. He gets to do it because he dug the well. Okay? When you when you create something, you get to go back and do it again. Small rant about Sherlock Holmes and old British properties. I think the IP adaptations of these are a huge waste of money, but it's easier to pitch something to a studio or an executive when you don't have to introduce something new. We always joke about an elevator pitch and just sticking two ideas together so they buy the premise and not the script. But Sherlock Holmes will always be adapted to a procedural. And hear me out, these are Sherlock without calling themselves Sherlock Holmes. So there is Elementary, there is Watson, there is House, which is just Sherlock is a doctor. There is Monk, which is Sherlock has OCD. There is Psych, which is Sherlock with a photographic memory. There is High Potential, which is Lady Sherlock with a high IQ. There is Numbers with Sherlock Math. There's The Finder with PTSD OCD Sherlock. There is RJ Decker with a photojournalist Sherlock. And we're going to talk about Scott Speedman and Robbie G in Underworld, so that's coming up. I uh I also want to say Richie does two Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock movies at the same time the BBC is doing their Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock miniseries. Then Richie produces an Amazon show. I hope you're starting to realize I like it when he goes to the well because it's the most original angle that he's got. In all of that, I don't know why I was looking this up, but uh I was looking for adaptations of other things. So Robin Hood, which I just say currently is uh gonna be having like a modern retelling. But in 2023, I'm looking at Robin Hood, a Canadian series created by Director X, which reimagines Robin Hood as Robin, a female rapper, and The Hood, a masked hip-hop band living in a working-class area in a fictional city of New Nottingham, and sparring with the antagonists including the Sheriff and a property tycoon named John Prince. Okay, some adaptations are okay. I I want to watch that. So it's no surprise that two British boys grew up in the Cold War wanting to be James Bond. Vaughn and Richie would become filmmakers that wanted to make a Bond film, but no one asked. So, to make a name for themselves, Vaughn goes back to the well and makes Layer Cake, casts Daniel Craig, and now we got your James Bond. Then Vaughn digs a completely new well and makes three Kingsman movies. Richie tiptoes over The New Oasis, does Man from Uncle, Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and Operation Fortune. These guys love spies. They like making spy movies. Additionally, Richie has also shot an unofficial sequel to Layer Cake, but we gotta wait until 2028 for Viva La Madness. Listen to the theme from Snatch and tell me Soderberg didn't steal Ocean's 11. Circular narrative, ensemble cast, fight night heist. I'd give him points for originality, but I like Logan Lucky better than all of these combined. And Soderberg has drawn from the well, my friends. Making Snatch means going back to the well. Only this time the guys have 10 times their budget. And with that, they can afford a more recognizable cast and better needle drops. This is kind of like Raimi remaking Evil Dead with a better budget. It's a safe move because of how well received the first was. And people started reaching out to get cast. Brad Pitt called Guy Ritchie and asked to be put in this, which leads to problems because he can't grasp any of the regional accents for Mickey. The stupid irony of this film is for a movie named Snatch, I believe there are four female speaking roles.
SPEAKER_00What I meant to say was Ted's very handsome, so I'm always interested in meeting the lady that can snatch him up. Did you just call me a whore?
SPEAKER_03What? You just worry about your own snatch. How about that, honey? Whoa, hey!
SPEAKER_02One is an indecipherable Mickey's mom, one bookie, and twins. Richie will get better at this, but it does seem like his first two movies are declaring war on the Bechtel test. It makes you wonder if the UK started importing women after 2000. Verena was in Saving Private Ryan in ninety eight. I think it is the same number of women in it. If we're keeping up with the show, this is the second movie with a boxing subplot. And Richie does this often. In Lockstock, the card game that gets our lovable group in a hot cup of tea is a boxing ring. Richie's take on Sherlock Holmes is he's he was so intelligent he can box. And Colin Farrell and the gentleman runs a dojo. That's probably the best part of that movie. Hey folks, I think it's time. Let's take a look down. Okay, so a big pail full of the fountain of youth. Just kidding, he directed that movie and I saw it, but I'm not sure it exists. So, what's in the well? In the well is an ensemble cast, a MacGuffin, uh, circular narrative, difficult to understand accents, cool music, and voiceover narration. Oh, and it's super hard to get firearms in the UK, so everyone has to be a criminal, and there are no police. Competent ones at least. So, in Lockstock, it's a pair of classic shotguns and some pot. Voice over by the barback Alan Ford, who plays Bricktop in this movie. In Rock and Roller, it's a painting. The VO is done by Mark Strong. People ask the question. What's a rock and roller? And I'll tell him, it's not about it. In The Gentleman, it's a network of grow operations, and Matthew McConaughey does a Lincoln ad in a pub, possibly Guy Ritchie's pub. Shoot, some facts about Guy Ritchie. I think he's just really cool, man. He brews his own beer at his estate, where he shot season two of the Gentleman series. And it's rumored he directs remotely when he has too many projects he's juggling. Let's go. What's in the well for Snatch? Snatch is about a diamond, Jason Statham does the voiceover, and the power of charisma over talent is alive and well. Also on display with Vinny Jones. Ugh, chef's kits. We're going to see Statham again in Ghosts of Mars, but this movie explains his longevity. And he's hanging on to the hair. When he goes fully bald, it looks like he takes off 10 years. When Lockstock came out, it was impossible not to compare its dialogue, crime themes, and music to pole fiction, Jackie Brown, and Scorsese Slop. It's so funny how after doing it twice, there's a contingent of filmmakers that wanted to emulate Richie. Smoking Aces, Next Air, Lucky Number Slevin, and a movie I look back fondly on, starring a young Heath Ledger called Two Hands, all try to do this Richie stuff with limited success. Even comedies start to back up, like um Death at a Funeral is very much tied to the success of Guy Richie Chaos. And Richie is aware of the Tarantino comparison. It's on his mind so much that he had to change an animated sequence and revolver because he heard Quentin Tarantino had already done it in Kill Bill Part 1. On screen, you immediately notice a step up in the film stock and look of Snatch from Lockstock. The orange is traded for a cool blue, and even in the beginning sequence, before the Trojan horse Hasidic Jews are revealed, the camera drifting from CCT like monitors is so inventive and reminiscent of Panic Room, which this film proceeds by several years. The landline phone calls being split screen, not like Time Code, there's a deliberate movement between this. The Concorde is still flying, the speed ramping, everything about this movie is indicative of 2000, and it really rocks. The slow motion is still in its infancy, so high frame rate, you get really grainy and probably has to be really overlit, but it looks great in the fight. And if you remember the machine gun scene from Lockstock and Smoking Barrels, it's the best use of early slow motion and its uh, I don't know, maybe a 30-second spot. The editor uh of this movie is John Harris, who is Danny Boyle's dude. Recently, um uh he did the edit on 28 Years Later. He also works with Matthew Vaughn a lot. The kinetic editing is composed of intentional shots. Richie would come up with the sequencing, do three or four takes, and then depending on what worked best visually, Harris cut together. I think Edgar Wright is maybe the king of this intentional montage style, and because of that, your director must have the vision and then it must work in tandem with your editor. There is so much physical comedy in this movie, and most of the lenses are really tight. Like, because they don't have much room and everything's inside, there isn't a ton of wide shots. But in scenes like when Tony and Avi are uh interrogating the pawn stars, it's an unbroken take with the dog attacking Tyrone, and it is so funny. I'm accustomed to watching most everything with subtitles nowadays, but if you had trouble understanding the alleged English in this movie, lagged? Speak English to me, Tony. I thought this country spawned the f language, and so far nobody seems to speak it. The soundtrack in visual storytelling would still communicate the story. Now let's go into some of our characters. And I'll preface this with the first group are men just diversifying their portfolio. The promoters should stick to slot machines, the pawn guys should stick to jewelry, but they're dipping their toes into crime, and they're different than the second list of characters I'll get to. So, a very young Stephen Graham is Tommy, and you would never expect him to have the career, kind of like Jason Statham. He's just a guy who was plucked off the street by Guy Ritchie, and he eventually has a career. When I was younger, I thought Tommy was a silly, annoying character, and now I see that everyone's just really rude to him. It's Jason Statham's first line. He just he does it to take the piss out of him for fun. And his lecture on lactose intolerance seems stupid to teenage me, but after 30, my warranty has expired, and a tablespoon of half and a half of my coffee will ruin my day. So then we got Lenny James's soul. He was in Lost in Space the year before, and he gets to say the great line: this cold war just got hot. Uh he's in lockout later, and he's a he's a regular on The Walking Dead. The man works. We have Ade. He's a moniker, he's the guy who plays Tyrone. Um, if he looks familiar, he's also the large black uh poker player in Casino Royale. Bond. Also going to be in the 51st state when we cover that, which is the director of Warriors of Virtue using Sam Jackson and Robert Carlisle to knock off Danny Boyle, Quentin Tarantino, and Guy Ritchie. Then we got Robbie G as Vinny. Um we're gonna be seeing him again in Underworld, I said, but I really love the way that that guy speaks. All right, we got Dennis Farina as Abby, and I think Dennis Farina saying the F-word is like a special effect. He's pro throughout his career, but I think his supporting role in like Bottle Shock, same with Alan Rickman, is uh it's the lighthearted roles that get to show his range. Okay, now we get to talk about the proper criminals, and I think it's funny that the legitimate criminals all have three-part nicknames. So, Benicio del Toro, doing some of the usual suspect vocal affectation for this role of Frankie Fourfingers. Alright, then we got Vinny Jones, who at this point is retired from soccer. There's a number of athletes in this movie, but Vinny has other projects since Lockstock and has moved to Los Angeles. The same year as Gone in Sixty Seconds, as this movie, um, they do the opposite. In Snatch, he's an erudite Bullettooth Tony, and in Gone in 60 Seconds, he's a silent Sphinx, who becomes well spoken at the end. And uh I think about it, the end of that movie has a scene so reminiscent of like a Toretto barbecue, it's baffling. Guys, come on. That's baffling. Sorry. Oh shoot, and now that I think about it, in both movies, he threatens a dog with a knife. Baffling. Guys, I'm sorry. Alright, I'm I'm not gonna attempt to say his name correctly, but Raid Surzbiga plays Boris and um Boris the Blade, aka Boris the Bullet Dodger. Um, Raid has appeared in 156 roles in films. Like the way he puts his earplugs and aims the gun and kills Vinicio del Toro is this weird realism to this movie. And this movie's a farce, but he actually nails that role. All right, let's continue with the bad guys. So I'm trying to get through this movie clean, and the first credits are producers, and I see a name, and it's like, I know that guy. Who is Steve Tisch? Steve Tisch is a film producer turned owner of the New York Giants. He's one of those Epstein creeps, like our black and white friend, Brett Ratner. And if you want more connections to black and white, Matthew Vaughn eventually marries Claudia Schiffer, and Richie did do Sherlock with Robert Downey Jr. All right. While we're on this, Robert Kraft is in the Epstein Files, and he was caught in a sting operation soliciting a prostitute. How does he cancel anyone? How can he have a public life at all? The wrong people are running the show, and fuck Ed Sheeran. But he's gonna be fine. He's wealthy, he bowed to the ruling class, and he's a ghost rider, but by design he can disappear. And I got a soft spot for live looping and street buskers, but fuck that ginger sellout. I seriously could have predicted the American beef industry being sabotaged by this administration on like a 2026 bingo sheet, but I never could have suspected the masses coming to support McLamore of all people in denouncing the IDF. I'm trying to do the math or maths, but I think I've had this DVD since the seventh grade, maybe the eighth. If we're getting on with the show, it's time for a rating, and I give this a 9 out of 10. It will be staying in my collection. This is the first film from the list I did not have to purchase, and it's getting to a point where I think I'm smoothing the edges on the rough draft of a podcast. Folks, thank you so much for listening. This has been Screen Generation. It's a show about the movies, but really it's about history through the lenses of different filmmakers. My name is Evan Antonio Hughes, coming to you from Las Cruces, New Mexico, where the chili is hot, the cannabis is potent, and our monsoon has finally begun. If you are interested in how the sausage is made, I will be posting content on the Screen Generation Instagram and YouTube pages. Check back next week for the beginning of our Morris Chestnut saga with the brothers.
SPEAKER_08I broke up with three women in the last two months, and that that's not that's not too cool.
SPEAKER_03Maybe you should become celibate. Put the physical behind your greater spiritual self.
SPEAKER_08Uh yeah, sorry, Doc, but my greater spiritual self needs the booty. Let's keep it real. We're single professional men. We the cream of the property. Oh, here we go. Come on, it's a broken record, B. We deserve the best, and right now, sisters ain't up to the job.
SPEAKER_03What the hell are you talking about? Are you high or something?
SPEAKER_07Jackson.
SPEAKER_03Would you like to meet my sister?
SPEAKER_07I'm kind of off the market right now. Derek. I don't want to brag, but let's just say our young brother's getting all he can stand these days.
SPEAKER_00Boom!
SPEAKER_07Terry.
SPEAKER_00Is there anything else I can do for you?
SPEAKER_07Hey, girl, you got nothing to worry about. I got oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00Maybe I gotta go.
SPEAKER_07Brian.
SPEAKER_08I'm La Muzinga.
SPEAKER_07La Mu what?
SPEAKER_08La Muzinda.
SPEAKER_03Goddess of light.
SPEAKER_07Cool, you know. Do your thing. After a lifetime of playing the field.
SPEAKER_03This is about sex. See, that's all you men care about.
SPEAKER_07Four friends have to do something they never thought possible. From this moment forward, I'm a one-woman man.
SPEAKER_08You shouldn't talk like that. You need Jesus. Grow up. We're getting married. There goes my buzz.
SPEAKER_03I don't have a boyfriend, and I'm not looking for one.
SPEAKER_08Good. Because I don't have a girlfriend, and I'm not looking for one.
SPEAKER_03Good.
SPEAKER_08But this is what we wanted. Love, happiness. Look, Al Green, love and happiness is one thing, but we're talking about marriage here, man. You are an arrogant fool. I do not need the drama, Miss Jackie Chan. This spring. You can't do it, Jake.
SPEAKER_07It's just cold feet, man. You'll get over that.
SPEAKER_08Terry's gotta do the right thing here.
SPEAKER_07Terry needs to run like hell. There's nothing like a good woman to the to make a brother wanna be a man.
SPEAKER_08Change because of you.
SPEAKER_07And I'm not afraid to tell you I love you, Disney. Morris Jestnut, D.L. Hugley, Bill Bellamy, Shamar Moore.
SPEAKER_08What y'all want to drink to? To love. Oh, hell no. Do something else. The brothers. To us, fellas. Yeah, the brothers.
SPEAKER_01Peace. Uh, and as always. He's a boxer in it. He's a boxer in it. He's a boxer job late.