It's back to bad guys in London for Ritchie's new film RocknRolla

After getting swept off course by his wife Madonna in Swept Away and pretension in Revolver, Guy Ritchie is back with his most accessible and enjoyable film yet in RocknRolla. The dark crime comedy, distributed by Warner Bros, is scheduled to hit cinemas next month.



—What was your inspiration for RocknRolla?

—Well, it's in the same genre as Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and I felt I wanted to do another one, partly because of the amount of enthusiasm I got, but also because England has changed so much in the past 20 years. The world of crime has consequently changed so much. So to a degree, part of the film is about old school gangsters getting pushed out by the new school and an aspect of that is Eastern European or Russian. So, a few years ago if your average gangster had made a few million, that has really been eclipsed by the international eastern gangster who now comes packing billions.

—Why did this film genre click with you so much?

—I don't know. I just like under-cultures and sub-cultures. It just happened to be my thing.

—How different in tone is it?

—Well, it's in the same genre so if you saw this and you saw Snatch, you would suspect that the same filmmaker was behind it.

—But is it any different?

—I'd like to think so, because otherwise we'd have called it Snatch 2. It's a contemporary take and the stories are new, but you can tell that the guy who made those movies previously is the guy who made this movie. That's part of the package. That's what I like to do.

—As you get older, do you approach criminals less romantically?

—Probably not. I try not to be ethical or moral about it. It's simply an observation and commentary on that observation.

—Have you ever met an underworld figure?

—Absolutely not. The criminal underbelly of society is heavily frowned upon by myself.

—What are the social commentaries in RocknRolla?

—England no longer has the identity that we previously understood it to have. It has become international like New York is international. So the commentary is how cultural identities have shifted. If you take New York and London now, they're so much more similar than they used to be. It's commentary on that. It's commentary on how crime has shifted and on how business is conducted.

—Are audiences harder to surprise these days with twists and turns?

—I think it depends on what genre the film is. After this film, we're doing Sherlock Holmes and that is clearly going to be in a different genre, right? So I think people would expect something very different and hopefully a flavour of what it is they are familiar with. I was interested in this genre and as I say, I hope it's got enough stuff in it, new nutrition, to inspire an audience.

—How different is your Sherlock?

—I suppose originally, Holmes was this intellectual action man, and I think they played down the action man aspect because they just didn't have the means of executing the action in interesting ways. We do have the means and we have the technology so we're just riding on the back of that.

—So is it a contemporary film, then?

—No, it still remains in its period, but we like the idea that Holmes an intellectual action guy to a degree.

—Is your film in a race against Sacha Baron Cohen's Sherlock Holmes film?

—I don't even have a script yet.

—Are you still a fan of London?

—That's my home town, yeah.

—Being from England, do you own a pub?

—I do have a pub. It's much harder to run a pub than it is to make a film by the way.

—Does the smoking ban in England affect your pub business?

—The only reason I went into the pub business is because they stopped smoking in pubs, so yeah, but I think four pubs a day go out of business in England.

—Why do you love London?

—I was born in London, and I've seen it change and I know a great deal about it, I'm invested. I live vicariously through my wife [Madonna], so I was once a spy, and now I've become a tourist, and it's much more fun to live in London as a tourist than as a spy. A spy always looks for the bad stuff and a tourist looks for the good stuff. So that makes it easy, being married to an American.

—Have you discovered new things about London, being married to an American?

—Sure. I mean, London is big. I don't really know how big the city is, but you think New York's big. New York goes up. London just goes on and on and on. London's been going on for 2,000 years and it hasn't stopped for 2,000 years. New York's been going for like 300 years.

—Finally, with everything going on this summer, is everything okay with you?

—As far as I'm aware of.



PROFILE: Guy Ritchie, Screenwriter/ director

Guy Stuart Ritchie grew up in London, and started his film career as a runner in 1993. He quickly progressed, and by 1995 was directing music videos and commercials.

A severe dyslexic and self-confessed movie buff, Ritchie had always been passionate about making films, and with profits banked from his video work, Ritchie invested them into writing. His first full feature film was 1998's now infamous Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Although initially turned down by 10 British film distributors, the movie was released after Tom Cruise found Ritchie an American distributor.

Made on a budget of just £1.6 million (Dh10.33m), the film went on to become the third highest grossing in British cinema history.

Ritchie followed this up with Snatch in 2000, which also did well taking a record £3m in its first weekend.

The director has been married to American pop singer Madonna since 2000. They have a son, Rocco, and have adopted a Malawian baby boy, David.