Explore the extent to which "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" fits Warshaw's criteria and where it can be placed in terms of Metz's evolutionary stages of genre.

Lock, Stock is indeed a tale of the city, London, and also maintains the theme of enterprise and success, ending in precipitate failure – though this too is questionable. Who are the real “gangsters” in this film? There are so many characters and “gangs” to follow that it sometimes is a little difficult to distinguish the main characters in this film, hence leaving us wondering who fails and who does not – in the end, they all fail other than Tom’s group, who are left on a cliffhanger. Of course, you could call this a success rather than a failure – they escaped with their lives and are now free men. They have had their failure at the beginning, but redeem themselves – at least, they secure their lives. If we are to assume that this counts as a factor of the gangster genre, then we must also note that their redemption is leaning slightly toward the western genre, though of course this film holds a barrage of comedy that a western would not.

The gangsters in Lock, Stock are violent, loud, extroverted and incredibly discordial to everything and anyone that crosses in their path. This is very similar to other British gangster films, such as Get Carter and The Long Good Friday, where eventually everyone gets beaten up or killed. However, due to its spoof-like disposition, it is hard to associate it with such films as above, as neither are a comic impersonation of gangster films, but in terms of the content, either a classical gangster film or more to the case of The Long Good Friday, experimental. Particular members of the gangs do work against this stereotype of the loud, brawling gangster – “Hatchet” Harry, the leader of the infamous poker-ring, is a quiet, forboding man that has only ever really shown any sign of violence after beating a man to death with a sex toy. Winston is quiet, very British and generally only violent when pushed. These two characters are stark contrasts to people like Barry the Baptist and Big Chris, the two cronies that work for Harry, being the violent side that he is not.

There are rarely any women portrayed in this film, and when they are, they are minimal characters – Gloria, the gange-addicted girl that hangs around with Winston’s gang, and the female card-dealer at Harry’s game. They aren’t important to the storyline, nor are they involved sexually or provocatively with any of the gangsters, unlike the apparent necessary inclusion of low-class women that are usually having sexual and illegal affairs with the gangsters included. This again is a case against Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels being a gangster film – or at least, a classical gangster film.

Typically, who we could possibly view as the “bad guys” (as we sympathise with the most humerous characters, namely Tom’s gang) are killed, mostly by accident. This is almost the boys’ redemption, saving themselves and leaving them free as they could have been in the first place, had they not messed with Hatchet Harry, an obvious leader in the underworld of cash in London.

To view this film after doing research into numerous gangster films of all kinds of evolutions, it is clear that Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was written to be a parody of the gangster genre, not only of the general genre, but also a parody of film-noire, with all the darkness of Harry’s underworld made humerous by his blundering henchmen with their heavy cockney accents that we are all familiar to. Up until now, gangster was known as something dark, something we didn’t understand – but by creating this parody in the shape of Lock, Stock, the film industry have given us an insight into a human version of what we all considered above, or indeed, below us.

In conclusion, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels fits just comfortably in the gangster genre, but leaving enough loopholes and making it human and humerous enough to have it called a parody, and for it to be hard to criticise when judging it as a gangster film.