A lot of directors suffer from difficult second movie syndrome, but Guy Ritchie delivered arguably his best with his sophomore effort behind the camera. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels set him up as the foul-mouthed, stylish and vibrant top dog of British independent cinema, and while Snatch was very much cut from the same cloth, it added an extra layer or Hollywood sheen to the formula.
The highly convoluted plot involves an bare-knuckle boxing promoter trying to convince a gangster to take a chance on a fighter. When he doesn’t throw his first bout, another match is hastily arranged, but there’s a second crime kingpin on the scene who comes to place a bet for a friend, while several other shady members of the underworld try to get their hands on a stolen diamond that’s about to hit the market.
A 74% critical score and a 93% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes would indicate that Snatch has its fair share of supporters, even though it’s been 20 years and change since it first hit theaters in the United States to push it towards $83 million globally on a $10 million budget. Star Vinnie Jones is aware of how highly people regard the film, so much so that he’s even pitching ideas for an American-set follow up that would reunite him with Guy Ritchie, Jason Statham and Brad Pitt.
“I’d love to do Snatch 2. Especially in America, they say, ‘Are we gonna see Snatch 2?’. A few years ago there was a rumor about Lock, Stock, but I think worldwide Snatch would be the one to do. I’d love to get the boys back for that one. I think it would be enormous. I think it would be an out-and-out smash. It would be an absolute blockbuster, before it was even shown.”
Legacy sequels are all the rage these days, but you’d think Snatch wouldn’t be something Hollywood executives would be desperate to turn into a franchise. Then again, not much has changed in some respects, with Ritchie and Statham still regularly collaborating, while Pitt remains one of the most famous faces in the industry.