In an attempt to refresh the already famous film genre he gave life to, Guy Ritchie created a rather twisty “RocknRolla,” whose deliberately intricate intrigues, unconventional gangland characters, ultra fashioned editing and, evidently, amazing soundtrack, highlight the fact that the movie follows in the steps of the filmmaker’s “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch.”

The British director’s emblematic elements are all grooving on the “RocknRolla” rhythm: well turned-out London gangsters, foolish members of criminal gangs, and know-all side players. Nevertheless, Guy Ritchie’s interest in this kind of people, including One Two, impersonated by Gerard Butler and Handsome Bob, played by Tom Hardy, is in fact transmittable, in spite of the cautiously refined waywardness that is really just a cover for negligence.

It’s extremely entertaining to watch Tom Wilkinson, for example, walking in the shoes of Lenny Cole, whose thug-like persona forces the actor to disappear behind a side-splitting bald cap and Cockney accent.

Guy Ritchie finds it difficult to put up a plot around these more or less complex characters. If he can’t actually remain motionless, he does a worse job with the structural design of the intrigue, as the various stories die away gradually. However, the general idea is sufficiently crossable. One Two, Mumbles (Idris Elba), and their crime ring Wild Bunch are combined in an acid real estate arrangement with Lenny Cole, who is associated with Uri (Karel Roden), a Russian magnate with riotously significant fortunes.

Lenny’s stepson is Johnny Quid, played by Toby Kebbell, the can’t-stay-away junkie and rocknrolla. All these people, plus a few more are spinning around continuously around a stolen painting, that goes from hand to hand. What the artwork represents does not seem to matter for Guy Ritchie, who shrewdly avoids showing it to us, creating one of many witty fine points.

Thandie Newton astonishes as Stella, the glossy, attractive accountant (she is dubbed “the little dangerous accountant”), while Karel Roden is silently threatening in his Russian role.

The filmmaker fits all these characters and their own criminal tales in a general plot that may just seem sensible if you make the effort of seeing the movie twice… or perhaps three times.

In any case, the painting is missing, and so is the money Uri had intended to transfer to Lenny. While everybody concentrates on the hunt, the movie begins to make no sense. The plot becomes too complicated and, as Guy Ritchie is not the best of puppeteers, he lets go of the strings, while the marionettes… well, the marionettes give life to the whole thing.