The Gentlemen Movie Review

Guy Ritchie has over the years made a kind of a name for himself that you begin to think of his films as something Afdah of a sub-genre in themselves. They’re stylishly shot, star the cream of British acting talent and are mostly about gangsters. They have a clever conceit at their centre on which the whole film hinges on and are peppered with funny one-liners. The Gentlemen clicks all of these boxes and more.

Well, Matthew McConaughey is a Texan and it's established early in the film that he's from America. So he doesn't have to work on his accent. He plays a shrewd criminal who has friends among the British peerage and considers himself a gentleman. He grows weed and sells it, becoming Britain's uncrowned king of the business in the process. He's also a problem solver, taking care of the unsavoury things his genteel friends have fallen into. It's while taking care of one such detail that he lets the opposition find a grip on him and he has to assert all over again that he's still the king of the jungle despite wanting to be out of the game as he's tired of it all.

Ritchie is narrating the film as a film within a film. Hugh Grant plays an immoral scribe who is narrating the dope he has over McConaughey's character to his right-hand man Charlie Hunnam in order to blackmail them. So all kinds of false narratives can be implemented in the film, not to mention that the fourth wall also gets knocked down several times. The viewer is constantly being told that the things he's seeing may or may not be true. We are introduced to various funny situations and quirky people. Chief among them is a dapper gym instructor player by Colin Farrell. He trains a group of youngsters in hand to hand combat who use the skills to make fight porn videos and post them online. So be assured of some eclectic fight choreography right there. Farrell's inclusion offers another tasty twist to the narrative.

Guy Ritchie had the habit of making stars play characters and having fun with it. And that's the case here as well. You can see all these superstars feeding each other off, trying new voices, costumes, slang and having a glorious time out it all. The film has all the joviality of a men's locker room. Though its sole female lead Michelle Dockery, who plays Matthew McConaughey's wife has a crackling scene which is all her own alone.

Watch the film for some rollicking acting by the entire ensemble cast and Ritchie’s unique take on the British underworld. It may not be his best but it’s damn entertaining all the same...