Media language in a short clip of lock stock and two smoking barrels

Lock stock and two smoking barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998)

Here is a scene from the film, it shows Big Chris (Vinnie Jones) and his son Little Chris (Peter McNicholl) trying to retrieve money for his boss Harry. In this scene there are several shots shown, with different angles. The angles Ritchie uses are high and and low angles, showing the complete venerability of the character 'john'. he uses a shot reverse shot going from a low angled shot looking at big Chris to a high angled shot looking at john. This shows the power that the character has. he's looking up at him laying down he cant move and makes the character look very big and powerful. it is also using mainly mid shots to show the characters physicality, the actions he uses with his arms. he comes across a very physical man, which the director is trying to show. also there is a close up of john when he is been squished by the sunbed. he does this to show the pain the characters going through, the emotions on his face. After little Chris swears it goes to a two shot to show that big Chris is angry, and the scared emotions on little Chris' face. yet again this shows the dominance of the man, a character you wouldn't want to cross.

The director uses non-diegetic sound to show the personality of the character, saying 'look at me, i'm a bad mother' this shows his ego, gives the impression he thinks he's tough, which he probably is. It's a long shot showing his walk, a confident walk with abit of 'swagger'. it gives the impression he's here to do some business, he isn't here to mess about. He does this to givea hint to whats coming next, someones not made him happy. There is also narration at the beggining suggesting that he hasnt payed the money he has meant to. The narration says 'theres nothing more Big Chris cares about apart is people owing money' suggesting he's an angry man.

The mise en scene is very simplistic it's bright simple and shows that john has money, he just doesn't want to pay Harry back. he shows this with the sunbed, he obviously has money because hes spending it on a silly thing like a tan. Another very funny part of this scene is when little chris goes into johns locker. It's funny because of the bad language the young boy uses, language he shouldn't be using. However this shows then shows the personality of his father he obviously cares a lot about his son, doesn't want him to go down the same road. on the contrary this shows that john has a lot of cash because of the big wallet he carries about. He's a tricky character that doesn't want to pay up.