East end boys

Arizona Daily Wildcat photo courtesy of Grammercy Pictures He shoots, he scores: footballer Vinnie Jones star as underworld enforcer Big Chris in "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."

The cast of "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" includes an international pop star, a renowned professional footballer, a number of ex-cons and a former World Heavyweight Bare-Knuckle Champion. Oh, and there's a bunch of actors in it, too.

"Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," the debut film from British writer/director Guy Ritchie, is already as widely known in the UK as "Trainspotting," a movie to which it compares well, with its own ridiculous hijinks, dark humor, over-the-top violence and obscure dialect. In this case it's not the thick Scottish brogue you have to slice your way through, but something known as Cockney Rhyming Slang, or CRS. It is an extremely creative way of speaking that dates back to Victorian England and became the mark of the modern day underworld. Basically, it involves taking a word, finding something it rhymes with, using the rhyming word in a phrase, then dropping the rhyming word out and using what you have left. (For example, "girl" rhymes with "twirl," which can be used in the phrase "twist and twirl." Drop the twirl, keep what's left, and you can take your twist to the movie. Got it?)

We start out being introduced to four far-from-reputable, but still lovable guys from London's East End - Eddie, Tom, Bacon and Soap. Eddie's going to make some quick money for the boys in a high-stakes card game, but unfortunately the game turns out to be rigged. This means that the lads have a few days to come up with half a million pounds before they start losing fingers, courtesy of crime boss and porn king Hatchet Harry and his accomplices, Barry the Baptist (played by Lenny McLean, the aforementioned bare-knuckle fighter, who unfortunately passed away shortly after the film's completion) and Big Chris (played by Vinnie Jones, the aforementioned footballer. Just to get it out of the way, the pop star is Sting, who plays Eddie's dad in one of the movies smaller roles).

What ensues is a comedy of errors that includes everything from weed-smoking drug dealers shooting at real gangsters with an air-rifle, the severe beating of a traffic warden, lots of dead hoodlums just about everywhere, and a junior mob-enforcer - Big Chris' son (Little Chris, of course), who looks like a 10-year old as he accompanies dad on the job.

A huge cast of characters features in the film, interacting in one of the most hilarious series of misunderstandings and turns of circumstance to be brought to the screen in a long time. The best thing about it is that no matter how silly it all gets, the audience is never tempted to second-guess the script. It's one of those cases of something being so ridiculous that it really could happen.

Of course, everything from the action to the dialogue to the characters in "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" is hyper-accentuated, and it's all even more defined by the extremely effective use of cinematic tricks: Freeze-frames, speeding up, slowing down and pausing the action at just the right moments to keep the viewer aware of the hands crafting it all, nodding appreciatively at not just the film itself, but the talent behind it as well. There's narration over the action at times, which can often be a detriment, but in this case it works well.

Yes, "Trainspotting" was a great movie. So is "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."

If you liked one, you'll like them both. But it's not a comparison that I'm going to make, even though I already made it. So there.