REEL CRITICS

‘Snatch’ aims to please with characters

Guy Ritchie made a splash a few years ago with his indie-import “Lock,

Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels,” a high-energy comedic film of the London

underworld. Now Ritchie returns with a new band of misfits cleverly

mining the London underworld again for a new adventure, “Snatch.”

Unlike most gangster movies, Ritchie’s films are inhabited by mobsters

who would have been rejected and probably eaten alive by the characters

who populate Martin Scorsese’s films. Ritchie’s gangsters, while brutal,

are basically large buffoons whose vices and mental lapses contribute to

their various predicaments.

The comedic overtones of what ultimately resembles a “chase film” can

be traced back to the slapstick comedies of the 1940s and ‘50s,

especially the chase scenes from numerous Marx Brothers films.

“Snatch” stars Brad Pitt, Benecio Del Toro, Dennis Farina, Andy

Beckwith and Ewen Bremner. Their stories intertwine and revolve around

fixed, illegal, bare-knuckled boxing matches, an 86-carat diamond and a

recreational vehicle. Someway, somehow, through each of the characters’

bumbling adventures, their fates all rest on each other -- even though

they don’t know it.

The film doesn’t have a moral center or even try to impart some great

truth. It simply aims to please through its rich dialogue of outrageous

characters. All of the actors seem to enjoy inhabiting their roles and

seem to be winking at the audience. While the film too closely resembles

the characters in Ritchie’s first film, “Snatch” is a relief from the

repetitive formulas that too often populate the multiplexes.

o7 “Snatch” is rated R for strong violence, language and some nudity.

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* ROB OROZCO, 29, is an attorney who lives in Newport Beach with his

wife and two cats.

‘The Gift’ leaves something to be desired

With a better script and a few changes in cast, who knows whether “The

Gift” might have come up to the level of “The Sixth Sense” as a psychic

thriller. As it is, Sam Raimi’s film about a small-town Southern psychic

haunted by visions of a dead girl is basically a midnight movie with a

slightly larger budget.

Cate Blanchett stars as Annie Wilson, a psychic whose ability to read

cards gives her the means to support her three children. Annie’s attempts

to help a battered wife (Hilary Swank) leave her husband (Keanu Reeves)

lead to violence gaining a toehold in her life. That violence intensifies

when a young woman (Katie Holmes) disappears, and Annie begins seeing

visions of her dead.

The script, co-written by Billy Bob Thornton (“Sling Blade”) and Tom

Epperson (“A Family Thing”), provides some genuine scares. But, perhaps

because the setting is Southern, it pigeonholes nearly all of its

characters into an odd or quirky mold. The one character who approaches

normal is the killer -- very predictable.

The cast tries its best to create something decent. Blanchett can make

even a mediocre role stand out -- witness her performance in “Pushing

Tin,” and you’ll understand what I mean. And Reeves is surprisingly

convincing, not to mention way scary, as a wife-beater.

But Holmes, far from her “Dawson’s Creek” persona, is woefully miscast

as the young fiance of the local principal (Greg Kinnear) who winds up

dead. Though her full-frontal nudity scene jump-started a lot of libidos,

she is simply too underage to be paired with Kinnear.

For fans of the genre, “The Gift” might be worth a gander at a bargain

matinee. For everyone else, wait until it reaches video or cable

television.

o7 “The Gift” is rated R for violence, language and sexuality/nudity.

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* JENNIFER MAHAL, 27, is the features editor at the Daily Pilot.