"Snatch" is more than a movie: It's a bubbling, babbling comic strip on wheels. Not fitting into the usual British movie mold -- it's neither a Merchant-Ivory rendition of upper-crust angst, nor a working-class saga passed on by Ken Loach -- "Snatch" is in a genre by itself, showcasing a crack ensemble of Londoners, who could have been scanned from the Rogue's Gallery of "Dick Tracy." Except, of course, for their accents.

"Snatch" is writer/director Guy Ritchie's second movie and though he does little else than duplicate all that had worked in his previous, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" (camera moving at sprinter-speed, slangy and irreverent dialogue, quirky methods of murder), it is nonetheless hugely enjoyable. It's as if he mixes a second round of drinks which tastes almost as fresh and invigorating as the first and from what I hear, this doesn't happen often in a Brit's flat.

In case you didn't know, Ritchie is currently high on the list of Hippest Brits in the World, probably just a notch or two under Prince William. Since the eye-opening "Lock, Stock" he has been deluged with project offers from Hollywood execs, drowned by private-party invitations and commanded by Madonna to be the father of her second child. And no less a personage than Brad Pitt flew to London just to say: "I want to work with you. Use me in your next picture" (or a close approximation of that).