Review: The Gentlemen (2019)

Guy Ritchie is up to his old tricks with The Gentlemen, a raunchy, ribauld gangster comedy that plays like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, but with arguably a better cast. Perhaps after doing hired-gun work for Disney with Aladdin, he had a hankering for some good ol’ fashioned fun. And that’s what The Gentlemen is. It doesn’t overindulge in Ritchie’s stylistic tics—speed-ramping, most notably—but it does showcase how good an ear he has for dialogue. The film also demonstrates that perhaps Ritchie’s greatest attribute as a director is his ability to control the pace of a scene, and a film as a whole. Individual scenes are quick, with much of the humour conveyed through editing; and, even though his films are often over two hours long, they never seem to drag.

The Gentlemen is framed around a conversation between a scuzzy private investigator, Fletcher (Hugh Grant), and a gangster, Raymond (Charlie Hunnam). Fletcher is trying to blackmail Raymond over information regarding his boss, pot kingpin Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), but to catch Raymond up-to-date on his scheme, and to fill in the viewer as well, Fletcher breaks down the whole story of Mickey’s rise and current attempt to sell off his pot empire. Thus, we learn about the rivalries between Mickey and other black market dealers, including Henry Golding’s gangster and Jeremy Strong’s businessman. We also watch Fletcher and Raymond offer humourous commentary on the story itself as it plays out. Ritchie uses this framing device to skirt the relative unoriginality of the material. In this way, he can blame all the clichés on Fletcher’s desire to spice the story up for maximum effect on Raymond.

Furthermore, Ritchie plays Fletcher’s entire conversation with Raymond as a movie pitch. He even has a screenplay of his scheme typed up, from which he gets Raymond to read out dialogue with him at one point. For Ritchie, Fletcher is the shameless Hollywood storyteller and Raymond is the stolid middleman producer. Thus, he’s connecting the movie business to the drug business, with all the amusing implications that come with such a comparison. It’s all very meta and very openly so. Ritchie doesn’t like playing with subtext. He’s an in-your-face director, which can be too much at times, but works splendidly in films like this.

It helps that the cast is so game for what Ritchie puts together. McConaughey is essentially playing the straight man here, the principled but ruthless self-proclaimed “lion” who’s fending off challengers to the crown of “king of the jungle.” (Perhaps Ritchie is trolling his former employer, Disney, with all the allusions to The Lion King.) But McConaghey is also surrounded by colourful characters that add a lot of fun to the proceedings. Golding and Strong bring lots of energy as the main rivals, but the show belongs to Grant, Hunnam, and Colin Farrell as a boxing coach roped into the action when his students rob one of Mickey’s pot farms to film a music video. Yes, you read that correctly. That’s how amped up this film is. There’s a music video interlude where we watch young boxers/rappers raid a pot farm and fight with employees, intercut with freestyling and music video performances. It’s actually an impressive rap, but totally over the top, so very on-brand for Ritchie.

But back to the performances: Farrell’s constant exasperation steals every scene he’s in, but the dynamic between Hunnam and Grant is the best thing about The Gentlemen. Since they occupy the framing narrative, they get the most screen time and dialogue. Ritchie clearly knew he struck gold with this pairing because he spins it out as long as he can and revels in the imbalance of their personalities. Hunnam showcases an immaculate fashion sense and a dry sense of humour, while an effeminate Grant spins puns and openly lusts after Hunnam in hilarious fashion. For being an actor often lambasted for being wooden, Hunnam is able to play his stoic nature for big laughs. The pairing also has a class dynamic at play, with Hunnam playing prim and proper and Grant dirtying up his accent and oozing sleaze at every turn.

There’s not much more to The Gentlemen than the brash showmanship of the filmmaking and the charm of the actors playing off each other, but there needn’t be. Guy Ritchie is a profoundly superficial director, but he also does superficial fun better than many others. Why mess with what works?

7 out of 10

The Gentlemen (2019, UK/USA)

Directed by Guy Ritchie; written by Guy Ritchie, based on a story by Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, and Marn Davies; starring Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan, Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant.

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