Yes, yes, yes ... I realize that the almighty Goat Boy already reviewed Guy Ritchie's Rock N Rolla back when it screened during the Toronto International Film Festival but with the flick hitting screens on Wednesday it bears saying again:  as wretchedly awful and karmically disastrous as Swept Away was and as over ambitious, confusing and loaded with Ray Liotta-sporting-a-bad-spray-tan as Revolver was, as easy as it has been to simply say marriage to Madonna has destroyed a once-promising film maker, Rock N Rolla proves that sometimes it IS possible to come back from the brink of self-destruction and Guy Ritchie has done exactly that.  Smart when it needs to be, stupid in all the right ways, big, bold and slathered in style Rock N Rolla is as much fun as you're likely to have in a theatre this year. Sure, sure, his Goatness doesn't like it quite as much as I do but I've seen it twice now and I'm a lot bigger than he is, so who are you going to trust?

Plot? Really? Like all of Ritchie's best flicks it's a twisty, turny, ensemble oriented affair that resists synopsis but the key stuff revolves around some small time hoods, a Russian billionaire, a strung out rock star, an old school gangster and a missing painting. And like all Ritchie films - all the good ones, anyway - it is much less about the story itself than it is about the journey, the film being an expletive laced road movie in which the road continuously loops and twists back in on itself in a myriad of surprising ways. It's violent, vulgar, blessed with a truly kick ass soundtrack and frequently laugh out loud funny.  It's got guns, gangsters and Thandie Newton and Gerard Butler squaring off in quite possibly the world's worst ever dance sequence, delivered in a hysterical deadpan.

Ah, Butler. Here's where things get really interesting with Rock N Rolla. The cast. The highs here may not be quite as giddy as they were with Snatch or Lock Stock but the lows are also far more smoothed out, thanks in no small part to BY FAR the best cast that Ritchie has ever worked with. Top to bottom Rock N Rolla's entire ensemble is absolutely pitch perfect, particularly Gerard Butler who shows a shocking knack for black comedy. What do you know? He's more than a set of abs after all.

Put it this way: Rock N Rolla is like the vulgar cousin to Soderbergh's Oceans films. It's not as smart, it's not as smooth, but good god it's a lot more fun. And that's coming from someone who really likes Soderbergh's caper flicks. So wash Swept Away out of your mind - assuming you haven't already - and forgive the man for Revolver.Guy's back and he deserves your love.