MAN OF ACTION

Guy Ritchie has swapped grimy gangsters for an Indiana Jones-style caper in his new film Fountain of Youth’. And, says Ed Power, he does his best work when taking chances

- Ed Power

Guy Ritchie has put the geezer in the freezer. The once and future king of bantering bad boys is branching out this month with a foray into rollicking pulp adventure. He's going from Vinnie Jones to Indiana Jones with new film Fountain of Youth a cheery riff on Raiders of the Lost Ark, National Treasure and the Uncharted video games, starring Natalie Portman and John Krasinski as sibling explorers on the globe-hopping trail of the secret to eternal life.

“I found myself feeling like if I wasn’t too careful, I was ending up in a comedy-action-gangster genre, of which, of course, I’m comfortable and enjoy,” Ritchie told Entertainment Weekly. “But at some point, I thought, you have to spread your wings as a writer-director.”

The British filmmaker has veered into unexplored territory several times across his nearly 30-year career – only to always return to what he knows best. Fair enough, his first attempt at trying something different was the disastrous 2002 desert island romcom Swept Away, starring then-wife Madonna. (“Everyone in England has slagged it off without having seen it,” protested Madge, as the project died an instant death). Yet, with the exception of that misfire – sunk more by Madonna’s terrible acting than Ritchie’s directing – his less geezer-iffic movies have been fresh and delightful and much more interesting than the gurning gangster stuff.

As Ritchie is no doubt aware, spreading your wings as a director can end with a spectacular crash to earth. When Martin Scorsese swapped the neon squalor of 1970s Times Square for Broadway show tunes with 1977 musical New York, New York, he barely recovered. One reason Quentin Tarantino never followed through on his pledge to make a sweary Star Trek film was surely that he sensed the potential for Vulcan egg on his face. (Golden age science fiction and the man who wrote Samuel L Jackson’s Ezekiel 25:17 monologue in