The Gentlemen Movie Review

The Gentlemen—It’s Not What you might think it is, at all, however….

The Gentlemen was directed by Guy Ritchie, taken from a story by Ivan Atkinson, Marn Davies, and Guy Ritchie.

It has a super-duper all-star cast starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Pearson, Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Colin Farrell, Henry Golding, Tom Wu, Hugh Grant, Simon R. Barker, Eddie Marsan and Jason Wong—wow! And, there are a few others—just too many good talents to name.

This is a Guy Ritchie production, co-written and produced by Guy Ritchie and others.

So, guess what!? The Gentleman was a complete surprise-- I found it to be a tongue in cheek sort of sophisticated, action comedy, but certainly not what I had originally expected—another misleading trailer??

The main character Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) is a well-known drug lord Kingpin, of Marijuana of all things, and has led a long life of crime, building his empire across borders in London, as an American ex-patriate. He is highly respected by all, just as much as he is envied. And, now he wants to be done with it; wants to get out of the business, sell it off, cash out, call in the chips—and that’s when all hell breaks loose!

Seriously, everybody and their momma practically are coming for Mickey, with all kinds of crazy schemes, mostly blackmail. And, it is quite hilarious, because they threaten to blackmail Mickey so as to not tell all the dirt they know about his organization, but they go even further—there seems to be no limit to what they will do to take over Mickey’s business, even to go as far as blackmailing Mickey for things, they themselves fabricate against him in real time. And, believe me, it’s organized chaos in an all-out effort to take over Mickey’s business, by any means necessary.

And, this causes a rather circus-like ride of “constant motion and action” in the film, with multi-plots going back and forth, particularly plots with time warp sequences.

And, you know, the plot was almost genius, almost—but just not quite.

I found it lacking a bit because honestly, after a while, I was bored with the routine predictability of the circular pattern it was following. However, the general audience I observed and spoke to, for the most part, seemed to like it, you might too! But when films get too predictable and repeat themselves, and we already got the message, you know, I do tend to get bored.

I would have much preferred a straight up comedy/drama that made a bit more sense and wasn’t so hard to follow.

I think going to the movies should be relaxing, and I think this movie required a lot of brain work in a weird sort of way—The Gentlemen was a total mixture of, “Who’s after me, Who done it, When, What, How and possibly Did Not Do It, to me, yet!?

So, there you go!

That’s The Gentlemen.

FINAL THOUGHTS

While the Gentlemen wasn’t what I quite expected, overall, I found it to be a rather sophisticated adventurous ride type of film. The two best things about The Gentlemen was No. 1, the clothing, the wardrobe was fabulous, it was really modern and stylish with an exaggerated British flair, so it was quite unique. And the second best thing, was Hugh Grant and Colin Farell’s outstanding performance. I guess that would be three things then, huh. I just couldn’t get enough of Hugh and Colin on screen.