'RocknRolla' (R)(out of four)

Encountering a Guy Ritchie film, you don't watch the movie. The movie watches you.

It comes at you in waves, thundering and screeching -- a raging assault on the senses. The British director has developed a rather sizable fan base, with the likes of "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch," no doubt fans of roller coasters as well. There are those who long for a fix of adrenaline, to have their minds rocked and rolled. And that's what Ritchie provides in spades: not serious food for thought but a sensory explosion.

Yet when I think of the movie rushes that I have enjoyed most, there was always a different quality at play. I loved "Sin City," which surged at us from its dark shadows. I loved "Pulp Fiction," with all its pent-up, spit-out vulgarity. But I think the difference between so many of my favorite roller coasters and Ritchie's rockers is a lack of characters and wit.

So it is with "RocknRolla," a movie of loony archetypes and pulsating action. So much happens here, but so much of it rolls off our brains with minimal impact. Seeing a screening with a packed audience, it's clear that "RocknRolla" will send younger viewers into a tizzy, relishing the brawn and blood that is all but dripping off the screen. But walking out, after the buzz has worn off, there isn't much worth remembering -- kind of like a two-hour sugar rush that leaves one with a sore stomach. Reconstructing the basic storyline after the fact is a difficult exercise -- particularly given the fact that Ritchie intentionally shatters the story into a million little pieces with his sloppy editing and jagged jump cuts. In terms of plotlines, the "why" of it all seems far less important to the director than the who.

Here, as in his last stories, we get various shades of the same low-life scum. There's the charismatic free-wheeler One Two (Gerard Butler), who's always looking for the way to make an easy dollar. Then we have the exotic Russian mobster (Karel Roden), the rock star drug fiend (Toby Kebbell) and the devious mob boss Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson). Even the accountants exude sex appeal in the Ritchie universe, as evidenced by Stella (Thandie Newton).

The story is not so much a coherent whole as an excuse to watch these various, nefarious cardboard cutouts strut their stuff and clash head-on. There's some sort of real estate scam that puts millions of pounds up for grabs, and a mad dash among these underworld characters to position themselves for an oversized payday.

Personalities collide and violence ensues (make that torture as well), and the faster things spin around and around, the more ridiculous the chase seems. Rather than give us a solid, decent character to root for, Ritchie imagines a sphere of unlikable goons, all setting out on unlikable missions.

"RocknRolla" looks great, and has acting talent to spare, but the bark is more far more memorable than the bite. But, like so many of the women in the Ritchie universe, there's nothing going on beneath the surface distractions.