Duchess

In the wake of Quentin Tarantino’s ascendance to his pop culture throne in the ‘90s, dozens of imitators tried to mimic his approach to filmmaking, only to fall flat on their faces. It turns out that what he does is much harder than it looks. As all of those Tarantino wannabes were to “Pulp Fiction,” Neil Marshall’s “Duchess” is to the work of Guy Ritchie, particularly “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels,” the filmmaker’s international breakthrough. Incongruent needle drops, freeze frames with character names, overheated narration, and tough tales of interconnected criminals – “Duchess” wants SO badly to be a Ritchie film that he almost deserves co-writing credit on the project. Although he probably wouldn’t want that. “Atrocious” might have been a better title.