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RocknRolla
Warner Bros. Pictures

RocknRolla reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 53 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.1 out of 10
based on 28 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 16 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for pervasive language, violence, drug use and brief sexuality

Starring Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Mark Strong, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, Toby Kebbell, and Jeremy Piven

RocknRolla is a story of sex, thugs and rock 'n roll. The action comedy takes a dangerous ride into high crime and low life in contemporary London, where real estate has supplanted drugs as the biggest market, and criminals are its most enthusiastic entrepreneurs. But for anyone looking to get in - from small-time crook One Two to shady Russian billionaire Uri Obomavich - there's only one man to see: Lenny Cole. (Warner Bros.)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Crime  
WRITTEN BY: Guy Ritchie  
DIRECTED BY: Guy Ritchie  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: October 8, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: UK 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

83
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Ritchie concocts a crime-jungle demimonde that's organically linked to the real world, and it's a damn fun one to visit.
Read Full Review
80
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
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!
Read Full Review
80
Variety Joe Leydon
A cleverly constructed, sensationally stylish and often darkly hilarious seriocomic caper.
Read Full Review
75
New York Post Kyle Smith
A sharp comedy as well as a punk-pulp spree. Don't go if you can't handle Brit slang. ("Grass" = informer.)
Read Full Review
75
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The bottom line is, all these people chase the same money around with the success of doggie tail-biting, and it's a lot of fun, and it's not often in these con films that everybody is conning everybody, and they're all scared to death, and nobody knows which cup the pea is under.
Read Full Review
75
Premiere Jenni Miller
Though the plot has a few too many holes in it, the sheer fun of RockNRolla makes it easy to overlook such quibbles. Butler will make you forget all about "Sparta."
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Although the characters are all cartoons, Ritchie still invests them with enough personality to make them stand out as real people, which is what makes RocknRolla much more involving than your typical Tarantino ripoff.
Read Full Review
70
Time Richard Corliss
The main problem is that Ritchie keeps playing the same old song. It's a swell tune, and we don't mind hearing it every few years, but we'd welcome another subject in a transposed key. Even the Material Girl tries out fresh material.
Read Full Review
70
Film Threat Mark Bell
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.
Read Full Review
67
The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
As is the norm for Ritchie, Rocknrolla is also too long, too coolly violent, and too populated by characters who all talk like they've been reading the same pulp novelist.
Read Full Review
67
Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
A fast-paced amoral joyride that's more interested in the absurdities of violent criminality (torture by crayfish, anyone?) than the complications of real life.
Read Full Review
63
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Watching Guy Ritchie's British-underworld farce, RocknRolla, is like being compelled to pay attention to a nonstop rock station you normally use as background while you're doing chores. The words are catchy and the beat keeps you awake, though all of it quickly fades.
Read Full Review
63
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
It's fun to see Tom Wilkinson, for instance, with a massive bald spot virtually eating scenery with a knife and fork.
Read Full Review
63
USA Today Claudia Puig
A well-acted and attitudinal action movie, a return to Ritchie's trademark "Mockney" style, which takes amusing and twisted turns.
Read Full Review
63
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
RocknRolla is a kickass crime drama that just doesn't know to quit while it's ahead.
Read Full Review
60
Los Angeles Times Sam Adams
Ritchie whisks you along on a whirlwind tour, but he's not averse to putting on the brakes long enough to admire some of his favorite attractions.
Read Full Review
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It never generates much interest in its story or affection for its characters, and it's simply not half as funny as it needs to be.
Read Full Review
50
ReelViews James Berardinelli
As punchy and energetic as the first few moments are, the rest of the film quickly falls back into mediocrity.
Read Full Review
50
The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Like the filmmaking itself, the violence has no passion, no oomph, no sense of real or even feigned purpose.
Read Full Review
50
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
On the plus side, the actors - especially Butler and Wilkinson - work overtime to pump some extra life into the self-conscious script.
Read Full Review
50
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
This film's got EVERYTHING, although purists might quibble that it lacks any sliver of plausibility or dramatic interest.
Read Full Review
50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
RocknRolla is a copy of a copy of a valuable original, and you know how faint and unintelligible those can be.
Read Full Review
50
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
If only RocknRolla's characters were at all believable - even in the context of its own cartoon universe.
Read Full Review
40
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
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.
Read Full Review
38
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Ritchie, who shoots and cuts everything in RocknRolla like an ad for a particularly greasy brand of fragrance for men, delivers the beatings and killings in his trademark atmosphere of morally weightless flash.
Read Full Review
25
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
RocknRolla attempts to depict a world of ever-expanding chaos. But the chaos is only in the way the story is told. The actual vision Ritchie offers is pedestrian and tame.
Read Full Review
10
Village Voice Nick Pinkerton
Sum total of scenes that deserved to stay in the final cut: Thandie Newton doing a little shimmying frug.
Read Full Review
0
Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
Frenetic and self-conscious to the point of tedium.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Discuss this movie in our forums

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