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Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Director Guy Ritchie has returned to his roots by writing and directing, The Gentleman. Before making big-budgeted films like Sherlock Holmes, Disney’s live-action Aladdin, and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Ritchie made a name for himself by making some of the best action and British humor films. If you liked his earlier films like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, which are quite classic films, then you will get a kick out of The Gentleman. As I told my friends many times after watching this movie, it’s a typical Guy Ritchie film.
The Gentleman starts off with Mickey Pearson (McConaughey) sitting in a café by himself. He thinks to himself when a gunshot goes off, seemingly killing him as the screen goes black. Raymond Smith (Hunnam) arrives home from work where he is greeted by tabloid journalist Fletcher (Grant). The two begin to talk when Fletcher pitches his movie idea about the life of Mickey Pearson, Raymond’s boss. Fletcher offers to sell his findings (typed up as a screenplay entitled Bush) to Raymond, for £20,000,000.
The start is that Big Dave (Marsan), editor of the Daily Print tabloid, is disrespected by cannabis baron Mickey Pearson at a party. How did Mickey disrespect Big Dave, you might ask? He didn’t shake his hand and looked at him as a peasant. Big Dave decides to ruin Mickey by hiring private investigator Fletcher to investigate Pearson’s links to Lord Pressfield, a Royal Duke with a heroin-addicted daughter.
Mickey’s tale is a common one in gangster films. Born in poverty in the United States. Pearson was a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he began selling marijuana to privileged fellow students before dropping out and building up his criminal enterprise by violence. This is shown with him holding a machete at a young teenage boy. Mickey’s weed empire grows considerably, and after years and years of building, Mickey is ready for retirement with his beautiful wife Rosalind (Dockery) and plans to sell his fantastic business to billionaire Matthew Berger for $400,000,000. Yep! You read that, right! $400 BILLION! That’s some good weed right there. Pearson shows one of his labs to Berger, and things start to take a turn for the worse. Pearson is later approached by the crazy Dry Eye, an underboss for Chinese gangster Lord George, who offers to buy out Pearson’s business. Pearson declines and moves on with his life. Things continue to tumble as one of Pearson’s lab is raided. Pearson and Raymond soon must clean up everything for the deal to go through.
For those that have ever seen an earlier Guy Ritchie film (i.e., Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels), then this film plays right into that structure and feel. The whole movie has that old school Guy Ritchie feel before all the big blockbuster movies that he made. Now I will say this; the film plays well to Matthew McConaughey and his Lincoln commercials. I almost laughed the way the first two minutes started. It actually felt like I was about to watch an extended version of a McConaughey Lincoln commercial. Then the film changes course in a great and exciting way.
The main drive of this film is not actually McConaughey’s character but the storytelling and discussion between Raymond Smith and Fletcher. The style of pitching the whole movie as a script to a movie studio executive really makes this movie work and flow well in a very, very entertaining way. Fletcher is trying to extort money by telling Mickey’s right-hand man Raymond that he knows everything about Mickey and everything that has happened. This is where the excitement comes in. Fletcher’s storytelling is spot-on with a lot of twists and turns. First, we get the rise of Mickey’s drug empire. How the man became one of the most powerful weed dealers in England. How did he do it???? The man set up all his drug labs underneath wealthy people’s estates and paid for upkeep because they couldn’t afford it. Pure genius. His weed empire became so big that a person wanted to buy it for $400 million. DAMN!!!!!
Here are the funny parts. The only reason Fletcher is involved is he works for one of those tabloid journal newspapers. His boss was offended that his hand didn’t get a handshake by Mickey at a high-class party. The man was disrespected, and he couldn’t take it. So, what does he do, hires Fletcher to investigate and write a piece of his drug empire. In the words of Drake, the man was looking for REVENGE!!!!!!!! That is the whole movie. Showing the craziness that Fletcher found.
Now the scenes that are truly the highlight are with Colin Farrell as the Coach and his group of highly athletic and skilled crew. The crew did the unthinkable and rob one of Mickey’s drug labs. Now you would think that if you rob a drug kingpin, then you would hide and lay low. What do these fools do?? With masks on, they record the whole thing of them doing some of the best fighting moves on earth and make a YouTube rap video out of it. You couldn’t make this s**t up. The coach and his whole crew are crazy. They also kidnap Fletcher’s boss and do some very, very horrible things. Something straight out of Black Mirror episode.
The other parts of the movie deal with Raymond dealing with his own s**t that is quite entertaining. The whole scene with trying to recover the wealthy family’s daughter is quite strange but serves a funny purpose. After some unforeseen events, Raymond and his people have to chase after some kids who recorded the whole thing on their phone. It is funny seeing some people run. Let me ask a question. Why is it when kids get together in a group, and an adult asks for something, they get all hard? That s**t changes when the dude pulls out a machine gun and plays NO games.
I guess I should talk about Mickey’s story in the whole movie. That is the thing, Mickey is around, but many times he isn’t. We see his interaction with his lovely and badass wife, Rosalind. The girl plays no games and tells it how it is. We also see him deal with his rival, Dry Eyes, in a very entertaining and intense scene. Still, he is actually not the central part of the whole movie. The movie works well with bits and pieces because we know what is going on from other people’s perspectives.
The best scene was when Dry Eyes comes and talks to Mickey about buying his business. Mickey, I must say, was a little dismissive, but like I always say, “Mickey doesn’t have no time for your bulls**t!” That is pretty much what happens. Dry Eyes insults Mickey and when see the over the top performance by McConaughey. He flips the table, yells at Dry Eyes, and before he is about to kill him, states, “There’s only one rule in this f**king jungle! When the lion’s hungry, he eats!” Classic line, but just so you know, the whole scene was a figment of Fletcher’s imagination, but it still works perfectly.
Charlie Hunnam, as Raymond Smith and Hugh Grant, as Fletcher are genuinely the ones that make this movie go. The dialogue between the two is very entertaining and funny. Actually, Grant is the best part of the whole movie because he is witty, sassy, and yet sleazy and a reporter. Hunnam, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. He was calm, professional, and level headed as he should’ve been.
McConaughey was straight McConaughey in this film. One minute he was calm and collective, and then the next was like a firecracker as Michael ‘Mickey’ Pearson. Michelle Dockery, as Rosalind Pearson, was simply exceptional in this film. She was fierce but calm and a straight-up boss who told it how it was and didn’t take s**t from no one.
The Gentlemen is a great, fun, and exciting film and gets back to what made Guy Ritchie special. Yet, this film isn’t for everyone. Out of everything, there is some language that will make people feel quite uncomfortable. While viewing it, a woman got up and left the theater because of the language. Yet, the film will deliver with its humor and fast-paced action. It will keep you hooked until the very end.
