Don't believe a word of it. For the truth is that this is just another re-hash of the early films that gave him his reputation as a "mockney" geezer filmmaker – a middle-class boy with a penchant for gangsters, guns and a smattering of gore.

Had RocknRolla been Ritchie's breakthrough it would have been lauded as a clever, fast-paced and dramatic window on the world of hoods, heavies and antiheroes.

Sadly, it's ten years too late for that but, like Michael Jackson clinging on the remnants of a world-dominating career, it still displays all the old moves even though the man himself is no longer as nimble as he once was. Ritchie is the godfather of his self-created canon and the milieu in which his characters operate.

RocknRolla boasts another multi-layered story, another multitudinous cast (though lacking many from his one-time repertory company) and another portrait of London's criminal sub-classes.

Like Lock, Stock… and Snatch, this one focuses on some lovable villains, a genuinely nasty Mr Big and, to add colour, a bent Russian billionaire.

The billionaire plans to build a mega stadium. He asks local gangster Lenny Cole to arrange planning consent via a corrupt councillor. To seal the partnership, he hands over his lucky painting, which is subsequently stolen by Lenny's crackhead stepson, a rock star named Johnny Quid.

To complicate matters, millions of pounds in cash, destined for several greasy palms, are lifted by chancers One Two and Mumbles following a tip-off from glam accountant Stella.

It's just another day among London's lowlifes. This is a complex tale with arguably too large a cast that labours hard to deliver super-smart rat-a-tat dialogue.

Like its stablemates it works to a formula that has become a Ritchie tradition.

RocknRolla has a twist: it's Trainspotting meets The Long Good Friday.

Fans will lament the lack of some familiar faces. Jason Statham and Stephen Graham are nowhere to be seen. Instead the lion's share of the action is taken by Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson and Toby Kebbell, truly extraordinary as the junkie rocker at the heart of the tale.

Watch out for the sequence where he demonstrates death by pencil.

In amongst the beatings, shootings, heists and chases is an uncomfortable degree of homophobia and xenophobia. It's mostly done with an edge of humour but there's really nothing to laugh at. The film ends with a promise that Johnny and Co will return in a new adventure. One hopes it will break new ground but we all know that it probably won't.