SANTA MONICA, CA. (Top40 Charts/ Universal
Music Enterprises) - Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla, a story of sex, thugs and rock 'n' roll, features a soundtrack to match the action comedy's outrageous edginess. The wildly eclectic RocknRolla - Original Film
Soundtrack (Hip-O/UMe), released
September 30, 2008, ranges far and wide across the musical landscape, from the '60s and renowned avant-garde rocker
Lou Reed ("The Gun"), American garage rockers The Sonics ("Have Love Will Travel"),
Queen of Rockabilly
Wanda Jackson ("Funnel Of Love"), cult hero Kim Fowley gone psychedelic ("The Trip") and Cuban mambo king Miguelito Valdes ("Negra Leono") to the '70s and '80s with urban stalwarts War ("Outlaw"), obscure New Wave duo Flash and the Pan ("Waiting For A Train"), rockers The
Clash ("Bankrobber"), Australian garage rockers The Scientists ("
We Had Love"), ska revivalists The English Beat ("Mirror In The Bathroom") and the Russian insanity of Ex Sektor Gaza ("Dopilsya").
The soundtrack's contemporary artists are film scorer Steve Isles ("Ruskies"), Swedish garage punk kings The Hives ("The Stomp"), British trad rockers the 22-20s ("Such A Fool"), U.K. alt-rockers The Subways (seen performing their "Rock & Roll Queen" hit in a scene set in a club) and electronica's Black Strobe (whose sizzling cover of Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man" opens and closes the film).
The Warner Bros.-distributed film, which opened at No 1 in the U.K. in mid-September, will premiere in the U.S. and Canada in limited release - L.A., New York and Toronto - on October 3, and wide across the country on October 31. Written and directed by Ritchie (Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Revolver), RocknRolla stars Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Thandie Newton, Mark Strong, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, and Toby Kebbell, and features Jeremy Piven. Also appearing is hip-hop megastar Ludacris (Chris Bridges), who portrays an American musician trying to break into London's music scene, but who is not on the soundtrack album.
RocknRolla offers a dangerous ride into high crime and low life in contemporary London, where real estate has supplanted drugs as the biggest market, and criminals are its most enthusiastic entrepreneurs. With millions up for grabs, all of London's criminal underworld conspires, colludes and collides with one another in an effort to take their cut. But as high rollers and petty criminals alike jockey for dominance, the true prize of one multi-million-dollar deal will fall into the hands of a junkie rock star - presumed dead but very much alive.
The film is produced by Joel Silver (the Matrix, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard films), Susan Downey (The Brave One), Steve Clark-Hall (Revolver) and Guy Ritchie. Steve Richards and Navid McIlhargey are the executive producers.
A Dark Castle Entertainment production, RocknRolla is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.
