Director Guy Ritchie returns to British gangster comedy movies with a star-studded cast in "The Gentlemen." For those familiar with his style, there's nothing new here. But for the casual audience, it might not be everyone's cup of tea.
"The Gentlemen" stylishly boasts a wonderful ensemble of actors that make the movie enjoyable, but the stale humor and half-baked writing developments try too hard to grasp a cheeky cool atmosphere.
Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) is a self-made American who leads a marijuana-dealing empire in the United Kingdom. With his "Cockney Cleopatra" wife Rosalind (Michelle Dockery) by his side, he's ready to sell the business. One of his potential buyers is Jewish-American rich boy Matthew (Jeremy Strong), but threats are rising from Chinese gangster "Dry Eye" (Henry Golding), a group of Russian henchmen and sleazy journalist-slash-wannabe scriptwriter Fletcher (Hugh Grant). Thank goodness Pearson has his right-hand man Ray (Charlie Hunnam) to help him do some of the dirty work and, eventually, Coach (Colin Farrell) with his MMA-skilled fighters.
Coach and his boys dressed in tracksuits have the best jokes and scenes in the entire movie. They get involved by pure chance, and between the self-produced rap videos, they film while committing crimes and boyish charm they steal the show.
As funny as jokes can be, the sexually and racially charged humor feels old for a movie released in 2020. There's a decent amount of racial diversity, but when it comes to the jokes, the Chinese gangsters get the brunt of the jokes. At this point in Hollywood, jokes like "license to kill" urge a more uncomfortable laugh than a genuine laugh.
The framing for the movie is primarily though Fletcher's script, which is also blackmail, and he's telling Pearson's story through the text to Ray. Fletcher says "let's play a game," to Ray before he starts sharing his knowledge. And honestly, it feels like the script plays games with its audience.
There are techniques thrown in to be stylish but they provide little substance other than an attempt to be tongue-in-cheek. At one point, Fletcher mentions wanting his script to be filmed in traditional 35 mm film, and as he says that the screen looks like it was filmed using 35 mm, but that lasts for about two seconds. There are plenty of unimportant yet flashy scenes like this throughout the entire film where they feel more sloppily looped in than necessary for the story.
The movie is fun for people with an acquired taste in Ritchie films. But otherwise, this film is a solid "OK."
Score: 6/10 stars.
Follow Samantha Incorvaia on Twitter at @_SamI520.
