We are probably always going to be here for a re-teaming of Guy Ritchie with Jason Statham in the “Cockney-Mockney-Geezer” gangster genre they practically invented. As long, that is, as it is more like Lock Stock and Snatch, and less like Revolver. So we are looking forward to Viva La Madness.
This will be the sixth time they have worked together, by the time you include Wrath Of Man and the criminally underrated Operation Fortune.
Viva La Madness is based on a novel of the same name by author J.J. Connolly. It serves as a direct sequel to his earlier book Layer Cake, which still stands up as a cracking gangster movie today, more than 20 years after it was released.
This version will be a standalone film with no connection to Layer Cake, but will still follow the same plot – a once-powerful London drug dealer who has been living in exile in the Caribbean is brought back to London’s underworld for a big score.
Teaming up with a pair of volatile British gangsters, he’s soon entangled in a labyrinth of trans-Atlantic drug deals, electronic fraud, betrayals, and power plays stretching from London to Colombia.
Production on Viva La Madness has already started in London, and now the full cast has been revealed.
Alongside Statham will be long-time Ritchie collaborator Vinnie Jones. Also in the cast are Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus), Babs Olusanmokun (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), Camila Mendes (Riverdale), Ben Foster (Hell or High Water), Jonny Lee Miller (T2: Trainspotting), and Raúl Alejandro (La Reina del Flow).
Connolly co-wrote the script with Ritchie, and Amazon MGM Studios is distributing.
