The Gentlemen (Dir. Guy Ritchie, 1h 53m)

The last few years, with the exception of the utterly charmless Aladdin has been somewhat of a disappointment for Guy Ritchie. His homage to classic TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E tanked, and his gritty medieval gangster epic, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword killed what may have been a great series of films stone-dead on first asking. Fortunately, The Gentlemen, whilst a return to the tried and tested slick gangster tales, full of odd characters, bloody violence, great soundtracks and quotable lines, finds Ritchie a little more playful with his epic of a drug lord wanting out of his empire, in a honed narrative that plays to all of his strengths of his style and finds him back on cinematic terra-firma

Much of The Gentlemen, after its explosive start, takes place in unreliably narrated flash-back, with Charlie Hunnan's footsoldier, Raymond, playing host to Hugh Grant's enjoyably mucky journalist, Fletcher, who holds compromising information on Raymond's boss, the American ex-pat drugking, Mickey Pearson (a sublime performance by Matthew McConaughey). Fletcher, who speaks in cinematic language, neatly accompanied by some on-the-chin visual tricks slowly and cinematically unravels the complex handings of Pearson, and the twisted web that he finds himself in, whilst Raymond, participant in much of the actual events, acts as neat foil, often rebuking, correcting, or outright telling Fletcher he's a fantasist.


Thus, we follow the building of Pearson's empire, from his student days as a drug-dealer at Oxford, to his growing power, including the eventual influence he has over even the rich and wealthy-McConnaughey's performance is sterling here, a perfect-and there is no word more apt-gentlemen who rarely bares his fangs as the undisputed king of the underworld jungle, but when he does is utterly ruthless and genuinely chilling. However, realising both his age, and the increasing danger of the job, so Pearson wants to cash out and leave the game to retirement. Thus, the board is set, and an increasing number of pieces moving, all wanting a piece, orindeed all, of Pearson's empire, from fellow canabis kingpin,  Matthew Berger (Jeremy Strong) to Chinese-British upstart Dry Eye (Henry Golding), whilst a crowd of characters from Pearson's equally ruthless wife (Michelle Dockery) to Colin Farrell's Coach, play their part.

For much of its runtime, The Gentlemen is typical Ritchie-his hard men macho up to each other in a series of setpieces, from the revelation of the pure scale of Pearson's drug-production, and the surprising way that he gets away with it, to a brilliantly taut showdown in the druglord's local between him and the young pretender of Dry Eye, who is later found to have been going behind the back of his superior. There's a series of brutal but extremely enjoyable thrills-n-spills moment, shot through with Ritchie's typical humour-one of Dry Eye's men throws himself under a train, despite being bound up, to avoid revealling where his boss got some information from, whilst a scene where Raymond is sent to bring the daughter of one of the noblity that aids Pearson's business ventures home is impressively brutal and suprisingly nerve-wracking, as it escalates out of control.

Tied up in this are an impressive set of portrayals, from McConnaughey outward, who practically storms through this movie, with his wild hair and often hair-trigger temper, he is every inch the gangster, whilst Hunnan's consigliere is an enjoyably quick-witted if unflappable foil-the few scenes featuring both in action may cry out occasionally for more of both, but are some of the best of the entire film. Opposing both are Strong and Golding in what are essentially a couple of stereotypical gangster roles played neatly-whilst it's fair to consider most of Ritchie's characters archetypical of the stories he tells, it's particularly notable here. The complete scene stealers, however, are Dockerty, who is every inch as ruthless and dangerous as her husband-if not more so-and Farrell, whose gang of teenager boxers-cum-rappers-cum-pranksters play off each other neatly, in some foul-mouthed but enjoyable moments that come complete with bizarre but fun rap-music video that practically forces its way into the film.

If there is one key difference between this and the majority of Ritchie's ouvre, it is in its metatexual off-handedness, which pratically is Grant's Fletcher's entire reason d'etre-through him, we get the sense of an older, wiser Ritchie, the film flicking back and forth between the fanciful, and overtly cinematic elements of the tall tale that he's weaving, including at one point rewinding the entire death of a major character to reveal what actually happened and the often more banal reality-though it's utterly upended by the film's final act, it's a surprising take from Ritchie, which he tops off with an impressively self-referencing scene in which Fletcher's cinematically savvy narration is put into comic relief.

Thus, whilst it's a bit of a cinematically safe expedition into the tried and tested hinterlands of Guy Ritchie's films, in a tale of idiosyncratic gangsters, oddballs, and visually slick violence and action, and feels a little hamstrung by its largely post-the-fact plot, up until the film catches up to the present in the final act, it's a relief to see Ritchie back making what he does best-a little older, a little wiser, and a bit more knowing, but still the same maker of bloody and funny tales of the criminal underworld.

Rating: Recommended.