Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels / Snatch / Layer Cake Jason Statham 2006 DVD

A collection of three popular British gangster movies. In ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ (1998), after losing all their money to London crime boss Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty) in a card game, twenty-something friends Eddy (Nick Moran), Tom (Jason Flemyng), Soap (Dexter Fletcher) and Bacon (Jason Statham) decide to steal from their drug-dealing neighbour, Dog (Frank Harper). Using guns stolen from burglars in the employ of Harry, the quartet of geezers carry out their heist, leaving the money at Eddy’s. However, as they set about disposing of the evidence, they are unaware that there is more to their firearms than they thought. In ‘Snatch’ (2000), writer/director Guy Ritchie continues in mockney gangster vein with this follow-up to ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’. In London, en route to deliver a stolen diamond to his employer Avi (Dennis Farina), thief Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) is ambushed by Russian mobster Boris the Blade (Rade Sherbedgia). At the same time, boxing promoters Turkish (Statham) and Tommy (Stephen Graham) enter Irish gypsy fighter Mickey (Brad Pitt) in a contest run by local kingpin Brick Top (Alan Ford). Instead of throwing the fight as arranged, Mickey earns Brick Top’s enmity by beating his opponent fair and square. Meanwhile, Avi travels to London and hires Bullet Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones) to track down Franky and the diamond – which Brick Top has now found out about and decided to appropriate from Boris. Finally, in ‘Layer Cake’ (2004), ‘X’ (Daniel Craig) is a successful, smooth-talking cocaine dealer – respected among London’s crime elite – whose plan is to bankroll enough cash to make an early retirement from ‘business’ and lead a quiet, crime-free life. He sees the opportunity to make a final score when big crime boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham) asks him to track down Charlotte Ryder (Nathalie Lunghi), the wayward daughter of his old friend Eddie (Michael Gambon). But complicating matters are two million pounds’ worth of Grade A drugs, a neo-Nazi sect and endless ‘layers’ of deals and double-deals.