Writer/director Guy Ritchie (with a little help from Luc Besson) has strayed from his accessible Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels to concoct an eye-catching if intellectually overblown game of criminal cat and mouse. A bearded Jason Statham stars as Jake Green, a gangster who vows vengeance after a prison stint covering for his weirdly monikered boss Dorothy Macha - enthusiastically overplayed by Ray Liotta. But Green ends up in the hands of two vicious loan sharks (Vincent Pastore from The Sopranos and rapper André Benjamin from Outkast) who may or may not have their own agenda. Quoting from Machiavelli and using the rules of chess as a metaphor for surviving in the world of crime probably sounded good on paper. But what unfolds here is a pretentious and repetitive substitute for a coherent plot as Green's identity - and the storyline as a whole - slides into a lukewarm intellectual smorgasbord.

Hotshot gambler Jake Green is long on bravado and seriously short of common sense. Rarely is he allowed in any casino because he's a bona fide winner and, in fact, has taken so much money over the years that he's the sole client of his accountant elder brother, Billy. Invited to a private game, Jake is in fear of losing his life.