The Gentlemen Review

The Gentlemen is out and giving the impression that Guy Richie has returned to his crime film-making roots. It appears to be working in his favour, if the early reactions are anything to go by. The film begins with a pre-title sequence with an American marijuana dealer based in London named Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) in a situation that will have the audience asking the question, how did this happen?

Then we join Fletcher (Hugh Grant), who is visiting Pearson’s right-hand man Raymond (Charlie Hunnam). Fletcher describes a screenplay he has written and this becomes the story of McConaughey’s background and how he got to where he is. Pearson is looking to leave his life of crime and live with his wife, an admirable if unmemorable Michelle Dockery. But the downside of leaving the life behind appears to be that many other criminals now want his fortune for themselves and will do anything to get it. The people who want the fortune include an up-and-coming Asian gangster (Henry Golding), another American (Jeremy Strong), and a boxing coach (Colin Farrell), who claims to be all about keeping young men out of crime, but who will still do gangster stuff from time to time. There is also a tabloid editor (Eddie Marsan), but I will get to him soon enough.

The performances are quite mixed. McConaughey is good enough in the role and it’s interesting to see him play a gangster. Hunnam also manages to stand out in most of his scenes - he’s gained more charisma and likeability than he had in King Arthur. But the real surprise performance in this film is Hugh Grant who is unrecognizable at first, in a role you would never have imagined him in back in his early days. He is likeable and funny, and it catches you off guard to have spent time looking for Hugh Grant in this film only to realise he was in front of you the whole time.

This being a Guy Ritchie script and a crime film, all the tropes you would expect are here. There are a lot of strong London accents, violence, swearing and all sorts of vulgar language including slurs. There is a rather odd, dark sense of humour, for example a scene in a Chinese restaurant involving Golding’s boss and what becomes of Marsan’s tabloid man. That was where the film took a big shot at dark humour, even if it was near the end. Let’s not forget a joke involving Barry White that whether you’re a fan or not should make you laugh.

The film also has quite unusual lighting; most of it looks relatively bright, but at the halfway point we see some of the characters go to a council estate and suddenly everything has a very grey look to it, and no effort is spared in making these well-dressed criminals stand out like sore thumbs among a group of drug-addicted youths. (Even if one of them is a young woman with royal connections.)

So much was going on in this that the music escaped me, except for That’s Entertainment by The Jam that played over the end credits. I should also mention a character called Ernie, played by Bugsy Malone who is a real rapper. A fight takes place involving him that then becomes a rap video and that is the film’s most “out there” moment - there is some humour to be had in the idea of something like this happening in a Guy Ritchie film, although I’m not entirely clear why it had to be there at all.

While this film mostly works very well, there are a few problems but they’re confined to the pacing. The film takes time to get going, but once it does it barely stops and keeps you engaged.. until the third act when it starts dragging again, mostly for the sake of intensity, which I can understand, but a bit of light trimming and moving things along faster wouldn’t have hurt.

The Gentlemen proves to be a promising return to form for Guy Ritchie with a very memorable performance from Hugh Grant. I really believe Ritchie may have put his recent run of less successful films behind him, as long as those who see his work as offensive and homophobic don’t get their way. Because The Gentlemen is neither of those things, it’s nothing more than a quality film from a skilled storyteller who has clearly shown that making crime films is what he is good at... and not films about a motion-capture Will Smith genie with a six-pack.