Metacritic reviews

Ritchie concocts a crime-jungle demimonde that's organically linked to the real world, and it's a damn fun one to visit.

It's all here: the ingenious, obscenity-laced language, the double crosses that turn into triple crosses, the swaggering characters so in love with themselves. GottaLove RocknRolla!

A cleverly constructed, sensationally stylish and often darkly hilarious seriocomic caper.

If you're a fan of the early Ritchie comedy-crime thrillers, then this is not only right up your alley, it's a long lost relative returning home.

RocknRolla is a kickass crime drama that just doesn't know to quit while it's ahead.

As punchy and energetic as the first few moments are, the rest of the film quickly falls back into mediocrity.

Like the filmmaking itself, the violence has no passion, no oomph, no sense of real or even feigned purpose.

On the plus side, the actors - especially Butler and Wilkinson - work overtime to pump some extra life into the self-conscious script.

Thinking back on watching these performers, I see them mostly as an arrangement of bewildered actors awaiting orders, as if Ritchie hasn't bothered to tell them what he needs them to do. He’d sure make a lousy Mob boss.

Sum total of scenes that deserved to stay in the final cut: Thandie Newton doing a little shimmying frug.