After making Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000), English film director and writer Guy Ritchie became known as something of a poor man’s Quentin Tarantino. The two British crime films made a splash because of their entertaining dialogue, dark humour, and energetic style of filmmaking. They also made Jason Statham a household name.

Since then, Guy Ritchie drifted from his crime-film roots and has mostly made low-brow popcorn films. Admittedly, I’m not the biggest fan of Guy Ritchie, so take this review with a grain of salt. I feel like his brand of filmmaking works for a specific type of film, such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Films where he is out of his comfort zone, such as Swept Away (2002) and Aladdin (2019), put his shortcomings on full display and are difficult to sit through.

Even watching his better-received films such as Sherlock Holmes (2009), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) or King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) made me wish for a blow to the head from Eddy, Tom, Soap, and Bacon from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. His overwhelming need to favour his personal style over storytelling makes such work too boneheaded. Give me an action film by Paul Greengrass or Chad Stahelski any day.

Consequently, I was excited to watch Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen. It was like waiting for a gangster-rapper return to his city roots after multi-platinum albums went to his head and he started recording family-friendly songs with Justin Bieber. But I digress.

The Gentlemen is unapologetically Guy Ritchie and can be crude, dark, violent and, occasionally, side-splittingly funny

While The Gentlemen isn’t perfect, it’s a return to form for Guy Ritchie. How you tolerate its biggest flaw will depend on how much you remember Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, because it’s highly derivative of them.

Just like those two films, the plot feels a bit convoluted. Admittedly, it took me two viewings to get it. In typical Guy Ritchie fashion, the film throws a lot at you quickly and some of the thicker accents take a bit to get used to. The basic plot is that Michael ‘Mickey’ Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) is an American who came to the United Kingdom on a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, dropped out, and started a cannabis empire.

He’s now ready to call it a day and wants to sell his empire to American businessman Matthew Berger (Jeremy Strong). However, others in the criminal world want to get in the way and capitalise. It doesn’t take long for plenty of entertaining shenanigans to ensue.

The Gentlemen has an ensemble cast. Aside from Matthew McConaughey, it features Colin Farrell, Hugh Grant, Michelle Dockery, Henry Golding and Charlie Hunnam, to name a few of the talented actors involved. They’re all excellent in the film with their share of memorable scenes.

The film is also unapologetically Guy Ritchie. It can be crude, dark, violent, and occasionally side-splittingly funny. Unfortunately, it’s got a few scenes that are flat out racist too. It even has some commentary on the death of old-school filmmaking, which is a little ironic coming from the man who made Aladdin, and uses jump shots like fish breathe water. Ultimately, it’s the worst sort of film that Guy Ritchie makes best.

Rated R for violence, language throughout, sexual references and drug content

Published in Dawn, ICON, April 12th, 2020