Long beforeGerard Butlerwas tasked with protecting the president in theHas Fallenseries, andTom Hardybraved the post-apocalyptic wastelands inMad Max: Fury Road, the duo teamed up with a slew of other stars to lead one ofGuy Ritchie’s most underrated films. Now, after being only available to rent or purchase on most digital platforms, it’s finally available to stream thanks to Roku’s new ad-free service, Howdy.
We’re talking, of course, about the 2008 action thriller classicRocknRolla, which was Ritchie’s fifth feature film that followed other favorites such asLock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels,Snatch, andRevolver. There was a romantic comedy sandwiched in there as well calledSwept Away, but we’ll never speak of that again. Taking in a modest $25 million at the box office,RocknRollawasn’t exactly a runaway hit, but in the years since its release it’s become a cult-classic of sortsin Ritchie’s filmographythat doesn’t get nearly the recognition that it should.
In addition to Butler and Hardy,RocknRollaalso features the talents of Idris Elba, Tom Wilkinson, Thandiwe Newton, Mark Strong, Toby Kebbell, and Jeremy Piven. Highlightling Ritchie’s return to the London Underground for yet another caper that divided critics,RocknRollawas certainly darker than the director’s previous offerings, but a movie that Roger Ebert still called “a lot of fun” in its delivery, and rightfully so. One only has to look at the movie’s synopsis to see it’s chalked full of everything that the director has become known for:
“Old-school mobster Lenny Cole (Wilkinson) rules London’s underworld with an iron fist and a score of well-greased palms. As big-time gangsters and petty crooks all scramble to get their cut of a Russian mobster’s crooked land deal, street-wise hustler One Two (Butler) tries to play both sides of the fence as the lucrative deal falls into the lap of Lenny’s presumed-dead son.”
Will ‘RocknRolla’ Ever Get A Sequel?
Perhaps no other film of Ritchie’s was set up better for a sequel thanRocknRolla. It was right there at the end of the movie on the title card that read, “Johnny, Archy and the Wild Bunch will be back in The Real RocknRolla.” However, nothing has materialized in the last 17 years other than a few tidbits of information here and there that doesn’t give us a lot of hope right now.
While Ritchie has stated in the past that there’s a completed script for theRocknRollasequel, his busy schedule has been one of the reasons the movie has never been able to move forward. As of right now, it has yet to even be confirmed by any studio, meaning don’t hold your breath waiting for it to appear.
Complicating matters even further isa legal dispute between Ritchie and writer/actor Mickey de Hara. He claims that Ritchie hired him to write the script forThe Real RocknRolla, which incorporated elements from his own life. When the film never came to fruition, de Hara alleges that Ritchie reworked his script into the 2019 filmThe Gentlemen, while keeping some of the same characters and plot points. The director, of course, has denied all the claims, and as of now, the legal matter is still ongoing.
Needless to say, the chances ofThe Real RocknRollaactually happening are slim to none, but that’s okay. Ritchie has plenty of other things to do, including a new action thriller with Henry Cavill titledIn the Grey, and a black comedy with Benedict Cumberbatch, Rosamund Pike, and Anthony Hopkins calledWife & Dog. Release dates on those have yet to be secured, as the former is in post-production, and the latter is still filming.
In the meantime, you can catchRocknRollanow onHowdy, which is Roku’s new ad-free service for movies and TV shows. A subscription will run you just $2.99/month, which, in this day and age of Netflix, Disney+, and others hiking their prices, is a pretty reasonable deal.
RocknRolla
