The Gentlemen is an action comedy written and directed by Guy Ritchie. The story idea is conceived by Ritchie alongside Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies. The formidable cast includes Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Hugh Grant, and Colin Farrell. Eddie Marsan and Michelle Dockery also get to join in the mayhem.
There’s a lot going on in this film. It’s also one of those that doesn’t unfold in the most linear of paths, McConaughey plays a marijuana baron living in England who has quite an impressive empire under his thumb. The film starts off with a story told by a private investigator played by Hugh Grant to Charlie Hunnam’s lead henchman Raymond. Mickey Pearson is the clever marijuana distributor who is looking to sell off his venture to retire with this tough, beautiful wife, played by Michelle Dockery. There is a string of double-crosses and mishaps standing in his way.
This actually turned out to be pretty clever piece with all kinds of colorful characters. I was impressed with the range demonstrated by Grant. I generally like Hugh Grant, but I often find him to limited to a couple of basic characters. He was actually quite convincingly sleazy in this one.
Most of the dialogue was pretty snappy and engaging. There were some interesting twists that were sometimes hard to predict. The cast was very effective pretty all the way around.
Keeping track of who was betraying whom was a little bit of a challenge at times, but it does come together pretty neatly when it is all said and done. It does get a little raunchier than necessary at times, so it isn’t for the most delicate of audiences.
There are elements of the film such as the the liberal spewing of some pretty foul language and some implausibility in the plot, however there is some originality in the characters and how the events unfold.
Ritchie could have made a few different choices for a broader appeal, but it is still one of the better offerings from Hollywood in the past few weeks.
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