Script To Screen: “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”

The 1998 movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a great indie feature. Written and directed by Guy Ritchie, the movie veers wonderfully between humor and drama.

Here is a key early scene in the script:

BOXING GYM — NIGHT

Stakes have increased dramatically. There is a pause as Frazer looks at 
his cards.

EDDY
Twenty thousand open.

PHIL
OK. My Doctor would beat me to a heart attack if he knew what was going 
on here. I fold.

HATCHET
Got some cards there, boy? Thirty thousand. Back to you already Eddy?

Hatchet looks impatiently at the door.

EDDY
Fifty grand.

Hatchet scours Ed’s forehead. It is still dry.

HATCHET
Eighty grand.

BOXING GYM CHANGING ROOM — NIGHT

Barry, who is trying as hard as he can to see Ed’s cards, frustratedly 
zooms in and out; eventually Ed raises them just
enough; Barry jibs, hey bingo he sees Ed’s cards!

Ed’s got nothing but a pair of sixes. Barry excitedly starts tapping 
away.

INT. BOXING GYM — MGHT

EDDY
One hundred grand.

FRAZER
Hold on fellas, I know . . .

HATCHER (interrupts j
I know you’re not in, which means nobody cares what you know. Two 
hundred and fifty.

Hatchet and EDDY minutely study each other’s hairlines, waiting for a 
nervous droplet to appear. Sweat breaks; a drop on Ed’s forehead, fills 
frame. Slowly we follow a droplet’s journey coursing down Eddy’s brow 
Eventually this is met by a large unblinking eye, at this point the 
pause is broken.

EDDY
That is quite a raise, one hundred and fifty on my hundred.

HATCHET
Yes . . . and is there something else you want to say? EDDY

As you know, this puts us in an awkward position. I don’t have enough 
to continue.

Pause.

CROUPIER
We will have to see both your cards if no one loans EDDY the money to 
continue. It’s a loan or we see both your cards.

Silence follows. A lot of nose scratching and examining of imaginary 
dirty ftngernails spreads contagiously throughout the remaining 
company.

It doesn’t look . . .

HATCHET
(interrupts)
I will.

EDDY
You will what?

HATCHET
I will loan you the money.

Silence. The sweat bead reaches the bottom of Ed’s chin, trembles for a 
second, then unattaches itself. Very slowly it falls. We follow its 
long silent journey. Eventually it is greeted by the back of Ed’s 
cards. It explodes dramatically in sound and vision, symbolizing this 
worrying news.

EDDY
I think I would rather just turn them over.

HATCHET
I am not interested in what you would rather; I want to keep going. I 
am also offering you the money, so we don’t have to turn them over 
because you can borrow.

EDDY
I need two hundred and fifty grand.

HATCHET
No, you need five hundred grand to see me.

Ed’s face is now awash, busily blistering with sweat.

EDDY
That’s if I want to see you.

HATCHET
Well, you’re going to have a problem carrying on, aintcha.

The pause is painful.

CRUOPIER
You can still fold.

EDDY doesn’t like the sound of this. There is sympathy in her voice. 
Harry looks sharply through narrowed eyes at the croupier; the croupier 
pleads with Eddy.

EDDY
I’ll see ya.

HATCHET
For half a million?

EDDY
Unless you are going to accept twenty quid.

HATCHET
And still got a sense of humour. That’s not monkey nuts son; you can 
still fold.
(Pause)
OK, before I loan you this, I expect, if you lose of course, my money 
back within a week, Crystal? That’s Sunday, OK?

These last few words echo in the distance of Ed’s mind (and ours). He 
is committed, but has now left the world of the conscious. Hatchet 
turns over the first card; it’s a seven. EDDY
ushers him on; another seven, it looks as though he will have three; 
then the third: it’s a four. There is an anti-climatic silence. After a 
loud pause . . .

CROUPIER
Is that it?

FRAZER
He was bluffing!

Hatchet looks content and rather nonchalant.

HATCHET
Let’s see your fucking cards.

Nobody is impressed by Hatchet’s cards; all eyes fall on EDDY 
expectantly We crash in to Ed’s pupils with a loud swoosh. They 
contract to the size of pinheads. His world has changed for ever.

Here is the scene from the movie:

How does the movie differ from the script? There are subtle changes. What do you think?

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a weekly series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.