The Gentlemen review – Guy Ritchie’s return to form
Movie title: The Gentlemen
Movie description: The Gentlemen tells a story about Mickey (Matthew McConaughey), a crime lord and an American expat, living and working in London who wants to sell off his highly profitable marijuana empire and interested parties who want to steal his domain out from under him.
Director(s): Guy Ritchie
Actor(s): Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Colin Farrell, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Hugh Grant, Jeremy Strong
Genre: Crime, Comedy
Summary
With its non-linear structure, interesting story, memorable characters, funny dialogues, very good soundtrack, excellent performances from the cast and energetic directing style, The Gentlemen is well worth your time. The main problem with The Gentlemen is that Ritchie made this type of movie a couple of times before and he does it once again proving to his critics that maybe he is a one-trick pony.
Director: Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, RocknRolla, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Aladdin)
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Colin Farrell, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Hugh Grant, Jeremy Strong
Year: 2020
British director Guy Ritchie emerged on the scene in the late 1990s / early 2000 with two excellent crime comedies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch. Unfortunately, after a promising start, his career took a wrong turn. Although he directed some big Hollywood blockbusters (Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Aladdin), he never achieved the level of quality established with first two pictures, directing movies that were either bad (Swept Away, Revolver) or just mediocre (Sherlock Holmes, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., King Arthur). The only exception was solid and entertaining RocknRolla from 2008 which was a copy of his first two movies.
After working on a big-budget blockbuster Aladdin in 2019, Ritchie returned in 2020 to what he does best – non-linear crime comedies with offbeat and memorable characters and amusing dialogues. The Gentlemen tells a story about Mickey (Matthew McConaughey), a crime lord and an American expat, living and working in London who wants to sell off his highly profitable marijuana empire and interested parties who want to steal his domain out from under him.
There’s not much to complain about in The Gentlemen – I got exactly what I was expecting, entertaining crime comedy in the vein of Snatch. Of course, the movie isn’t perfect and has some problems like some plot holes but while you watch it and trying to figure out who’s doing what to whom and for what reasons, you simply forget about these problems and enjoy in what Ritchie does best. And it is this kind of movies.
With its non-linear structure, interesting story, memorable characters, funny dialogues, very good soundtrack, excellent performances from the cast and energetic directing style, The Gentlemen is well worth your time. Guy Ritchie, like Quentin Tarantino, always knew how to get the best from his actors in this kind of movies, and The Gentlemen is no exception – Colin Farrell gives one of the best performances of his career, and even Hugh Grant and Charlie Hunnam are very good. The main problem with The Gentlemen is that Ritchie made this type of movie a couple of times before and he does it once again proving to his critics that maybe he is a one-trick pony.
