I was driving to work today and heard a song that took me back to a little movie called Snatch and a promising director named Guy Ritchie. The song was "F**kin' In The Bushes" by Oasis (really, it's called that on the album) and the scene in the movie occurred when Brad Pitt entered an illegal underground boxing match with life and death consequences. It was a good scene. It was a good movie.

Ritchie's feature film debut was Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels back in 1998, and the film actually ranks #214 on IMDB's top 250 (of all time!). Admittedly it made about nothing at the box office, but I'm sure it had a lucrative DVD run. This was an opening movie of note, and it signaled to the world that a bright, new directorial star was on the horizon.

Snatch upped the ante even further. It had Brad freaking Pitt in it, and it came in even higher in the IMDB.com fan ratings, #188. This time he garnered some coin upon release too, around $54 million back in 2000. Critics loved it too, 73% on RT. That's not too shabby: two feature films and two slam dunks. I don't know what the standard is for a director's first two films, I haven't looked to see if another director posted their first two pictures in that top 250, but I can't imagine too many have had a brighter future than Guy was projected for. Many directors have one fan hit right off the bat, but that second one is a toughie. Just ask Sofia Coppola (who slayed with Lost in Translation and fell back down to earth with Marie Antoinette).

Then the wheels came off. Guy did a BMW short called Star which was fairly well received, but c'mon, it's a short film. Next Ritchie married Madonna in 2000 and released the ill-fated Swept Away in 2002. How bad was this movie? It's sporting a 3.7 out of 10 from the fans. It didn't gross a million total dollars and I haven't exactly seen it in many people's DVD collections either. It was an unmitigated disaster. But those happen, and directors can survive that. I was willing to chalk it up to a vanity project with the material girl and was still hopeful for the future.

That future has not come to pass. Guy made Revolver in 2005, and we're still waiting for that one. Ritchie has lost all buzz in the five years since his last hit, and clearly the studio system is no longer confident in his ability. He's now working on a television project, Suspect, which is slated for ABS that will feature Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix). TV? Egh. Who wants to see another "procedural crime drama." Mercy, Guy, mercy.

It's easy, and comically recommended, to blame Madonna for all this. But that doesn't make much sense in the real world. If his marriage was terrible he'd really be throwing himself into his work, wouldn't he? Tons of late nights and solitary writing and such. If his marriage is blissfully happy, I guess we should be happy for him? I don't know. I guess I just miss the style of his films. Besides, Sean Penn survived Madonna and went on to win an Oscar (although it did take him 15 years). Perhaps we should look for Snatch 2 in 2015.

They say it's better to burn out than to fade away and no one has imploded quite like Guy Ritchie. His was a cataclysmic, death-star style of destruction, a black hole happening of cinematic potential. It's a loss for all of the peeps that like funny and action-based movies. But he hasn't done one of those in seven years. So while clearly Guy hasn't died, it looks like we can safely say the interest in his work has.

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us