Ritchie's 'RocknRolla' strikes familiar notes

After detonating two critically eviscerated bombs, "Swept Away" and "Revolver," director/writer Guy Ritchie has reverted to the over-styled, blackly comic, ensemble crime drama that established him with "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" and the provocatively titled "Snatch."

Ritchie's latest, "RocknRolla," is reminiscent of those early successes, but it feels and looks like an aging boxer with the same old moves who's returned to the ring one time too many.

A middle-management gangster named Archy (Mark Strong) narrates the story, spoon-feeding us information about the characters and the plot - even the parts that he couldn't possibly know about. It takes 30 minutes before Ritchie finally shuts Archy up so we can watch his movie instead of listen to it.

The rapidly convoluted plot begins, more or less, when a street thug named One Two (Gerard Butler in scrappy, working-class mode) wants to make a killing in London's booming real estate market. (Booming market? I guess this qualifies "RocknRolla" as a period piece.)

With his partners Mumbles ("Wire" star Idris Elba) and Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy), One Two negotiates a loan from a politically connected mobster named Lenny Cole (a balding, barely recognizable Tom Wilkinson) to buy a promising property. Somehow, Cole winds up with the property, but One Two still owes the money to Cole.

Meanwhile, a sleazy Russian businessman named Uri (Karl Roden) gives Cole a huge chunk of change to secure favorable zoning for a London concert center he wants to build. But that chunk disappears after Uri's sexy secretary Stella (Thandie Newton) tips off One Two on where he can intercept Uri's financial couriers.

Because "RocknRolla" needs even more subplots, Chicago's own Jeremy Piven and rapper Ludacris play agents to rock star Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbel). They all become intertwined with One Two and the others in a violence-soaked, funny-bone-breaking comic thriller powered by lowbrow gay jokes, thuddingly declarative dialogue ("I'm the best at what I do!") and wincing observations ("The streets are alive with the sound of pain!").

With Ritchie ramping up the style - slow motion, speeded-up-motion, odd camera angles, lightning-bolt editing and color-bled visuals - the substance in "RocknRolla" barely matters.

"RocknRolla"

Rating: 2 stars

Starring: Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Idris Elba, Thandie Newton, Jeremy Piven

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated R for drug use, language, sexual situations, violence 114 minutes