A stolen diamond, a bare-knuckle boxing match and a string of spectacularly unlucky criminals all collide across London's criminal underworld, and the bad luck keeps getting worse. Guy Ritchie's second feature is pretty much a machine for controlled disorder, where every complication sets up a worse one.
Snatch is a 2000 crime, comedy and thriller film directed by Guy Ritchie. This breakdown covers 6 techniques (4 narrative and 2 editing), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Pulp Fiction uses several of the same techniques.
Telling the story out of order by jumping between time periods. The order you see events in changes how you understand them.
How this film uses it
Ritchie breaks up the heist timeline and puts it back together in an order that favors comic build-up over cause and effect. Events get introduced, dropped and picked up again. Each time the film comes back to one, you find out things were worse than they looked the first time.
Where to see it
The opening diamond heist sequence and the jump into the London plot lines that follow it. The film then cuts between intertwined stories that overlap and loop back.
Timing the cuts to the rhythm of the action or the music. The fast, precise editing gives a scene momentum you can almost feel physically.
How this film uses it
Ritchie and editor Jon Harris use speed-ramps (sudden shifts between fast and slow motion) and fast cuts all through the bare-knuckle boxing sequences and chase scenes. That gives the film its particular criminal energy. The editing is fast, and it also has a musical rhythm that matches the film's pop, rock and reggae soundtrack.
Where to see it
Mickey's boxing matches. You get speed-ramped punches and freeze frames on the knockouts, and the editing turns the violence into a show.
Introducing a large cast only through what they say and do in the present. There are no flashbacks or explained histories, yet each character feels distinct.
How this film uses it
A dozen criminal characters enter the film in quick succession. Each one is defined right away by what they want and how they speak. Turkish, Brick Top, Boris and Cousin Avi get no backstory. You can read every one of them from their first scene, because this world is defined by behavior.
Where to see it
The rapid character introductions in the first 20 minutes. Each new criminal faction is set up in a brief, defining scene.
Writing long speeches where characters talk in detail about films, music or other pop culture. How they analyze these small things shows you who they are.
How this film uses it
Brick Top delivers his monologue about pigs with the casual expertise of a man explaining a routine part of his job. It makes him more dangerous than any gun. That is, the specifics of the speech (soak time, bone disposal) are the whole character.
Where to see it
Brick Top's pig-farm speech. The monologue works as a character portrait, a threat and black comedy all at once.
Mixing several genres in 1 film, such as crime, romance, horror and absurd comedy. The clash between them keeps you from settling into a single way of watching.
How this film uses it
Snatch combines the British gangster film, the caper comedy, the bare-knuckle sports film and the crime ensemble with no transitions between them. The film switches styles faster than you can label it, and that instability is a pleasure in itself.
Where to see it
The plot lines converging at the climax. The diamond, the boxing match and the mob's revenge all arrive at the same moment, and the genres briefly become 1.
Stopping the picture on a single still frame for a moment. It works like punctuation to introduce a character, underline a joke or mark a turning point.
How this film uses it
Ritchie freezes the image and puts a name on screen when each character is introduced: 'Turkish', 'Bullet Tooth Tony', 'Boris the Blade'. Ritchie had already used the technique in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and it also draws on crime film traditions. It gives the film the feel of an ensemble comedy and treats the underworld as a cast of characters in a shared farce.
Where to see it
The character introduction freeze frames. Each criminal's name appears as the film lists its cast with affectionate precision.
Questions
Snatch: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Snatch use?
CineCode breaks down 6 techniques in Snatch (2000): Non-Linear Narrative, Kinetic Editing, Ensemble Characterization Without Backstory, Pop Culture Monologue, Genre Collage and Freeze Frame Punctuation.
Who directed Snatch?
Guy Ritchie directed Snatch, released in 2000. CineCode also covers Sherlock Holmes (2009).
What films are similar to Snatch?
Films that share techniques with Snatch include Pulp Fiction (1994), Inglourious Basterds (2009), The Social Network (2010), The Irishman (2019).
