The Gentlemen Movie Review

This is an article “The Gentlemen” by Marc Primo

Release date: 24 January 2020 (USA)

Directors: Guy Ritchie

Language: English

Production Companies: Miramax

Producers: Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, Bill Block

SPOILER ALERT-- This time around, Guy Ritchie takes his brand of comedy and violence with the help of Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Grant, Charlie Hunnam, Colin Farrell, and a few guns to keep the traditional English brand of ‘gangsta’ alive in The Gentlemen.

There’s no surprise at all in how Ritchie delivers his new film that’s complete with all the smart repartees, uber-violent, and twisted elements that made him a household name. The Gentlemen is a guy movie for those who constantly need their fill of machismo and cool no matter how cringe-worthy it can be sometimes.

The story starts with tabloid editor Big Dave (Eddie Marsan) hiring a private investigator named Fletcher (Grant) to tail marijuana kingpin Michael ‘Mickey’ Pearson (McConaughey) and finds out the latter’s connection with Lord Pressfield (Samuel West)-- a controversial Duke with a heroin addict for a daughter (Eliot Sumner). Fletcher, upon gathering his valuable discoveries, decides to sell what he knows to Raymond Smith (Hunnam), Pearson’s right-hand man for a cool £20 million-- in the form of a screenplay entitled Bush.

As always, we get another all-testosterone cast of male Hollywood heavyweights dressed in flashy outfits and neatly greased heads, shades, and blasting guns but they don’t merely serve as ornaments onscreen as all delivering their engaging dialogues and funny turns while giving justice to their respective characters. Another surprise for fans is how Henry Golding sheds off his Crazy Rich Asians image and trades it with the offbeat and rough Dry Eye, a Chinese gangster underboss. Colin Farrell, who plays Coach, is likewise worthy to watch with his eyecatching collection of tracksuits, as well as his lethal role and performance.

The Gentlemen takes all the funny in today’s social media generation (one example is how Coach’s crew record a cannabis theft in one of Pearson’s farm on video and posts it online as a music video), and succeeds with significant hits. However, while the film may somehow serve as a nostalgic piece of Ritchie’s once-great reign in cinema, it falls short on giving audiences some type of fresh materials from someone who’s known to be so creative. He succeeds in returning to form, but unfortunately, it has been so long that quite a few of his fans have already left the theater.

Another consolation the audience can get is how the cast’s chemistry seems to blend well for an action-packed tale that comes with a twist worth waiting for. However, given that the idea is worth all its millions in budget, we know Ritchie could have done a whole lot better together with the band of brothers he tagged along with him. And that’s just saying how we have such high regard for the guy based on his previous hits.

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