THE GENTLEMEN
UK, 2019, 113 minutes. Colour.
Matthew Mc Conaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Hugh Grant, Colin Farrell, Jeremy Strong, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Eddie Marsan.
Directed by Guy Ritchie.
Some of them might look like gentleman – but they certainly don’t sound like gentleman (a surfeit of swearing which indicates that they are criminals, but might be a bit wearing for some of the potential audience). This is a story about British class.
The film was written and directed by Guy Ritchie who in the late 1990s and early 2000s cornered some of the market in British gangster films, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Rock ‘n’ Rolla and then had success with Robert Downey Jr and Jude law as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. More latterly, he worked for Disney and directed the live-remake of Aladdin.
But he is definitely back in England, back in the criminal world where many of the drug criminals present themselves as gentlemen and even make contacts with the impoverished upper class to fund them by leasing out secret areas of their properties for growing marijuana.
As with Ritchie’s other films, there are strong characters and characterisations combined with a great number of comic touches, playing with some of the conventions of the gangster film for exaggeration and laughs (and some plot twists that we definitely might not have seen coming).
There is an explanation why the American Matthew Mc Conaughey has set up drug operations in London, sent to the University but finding his vocation in drug dealing, growing, and a sometimes suave, sometimes vicious, ability with standover tactics.
However, the story is being told by Fletcher, like the rollout of a screenplay. He is a newshound with an eye to scandal and blackmail. As soon as Fletcher opens his mouth and we see that he is a bespectacled Hugh Grant in this different kind of role for him and not sounding at all like Hugh Grant, much lower class, Grant has already stolen the film and continues to do so right throughout. However, he has some solid competition from Colin Farrell in a supporting role as a sports coach who allows himself to be caught up in the shenanigans as well as the violence. Both Hugh Grant and Colin Farrell are well worth seeing – and hearing.
There are also some very good performances from other members of the cast but they have to play the straight man and woman rolls. There is Charlie Hunnam as Mc Conaughey’s assistant, listening to Fletcher’s story, continually trying to outwit him, and the audience seeing him more active in some of the violent flashbacks. There is Jeremy Strong as an American rival to McConaughey?, wanting to buy him out but, at the same time, wanting to sabotage him so that the price will be lowered. There aren’t many women in The Gentleman, the main female character being McConaughey’s? wife, played in a tough step down from Lady Mary at Downton Abbey.
There are also some Asians in London trying to get in on the act but they are doomed to failure. Henry Golding, remembered from Crazy Rich Asians and Last Christmas, is not so persuasive as an ambitious-to-be drug lord.
The film is very cleverly put together, Fletcher’s story and the range of flashbacks, quite a few twists to save people from deaths, some ironic satire in the characterisations, in the upper and lower class behaviour, quite a literate script (making allowance for such a number of four-letter explosions), that make it all work.
1. The title? Appearances and reality?
2. The London settings, the ordinary world, the criminal world, drug dealing? Using the aristocracy and their estates? Gymnasiums and thugs? The Asian presence? The musical score?
3. The strength of the cast, surprising performances?
4. The style of storytelling, a film script within the script? The range of characters, relationships, motivations, complexities? Fletcher and his prescription, telling the story to Ray? Controlling Ray, the tables turned? The range of twists? Characters turning the tables on each other?
5. Mickey Pearson, from the United States, the outline of his career, coming to Britain to study, becoming involved with drugs, his success, building a career, his organisation? Ray as his deputy? His relationship with his wife, her role in the organisation, her own personal work in sales? The plan to sell his business, the agreements with Matthew, the deals? The role the Chinese, Dry Eye and his uncle? Fletcher and his ability to gain information, his relationship with the editor? The links with the gym, Coach, the thugs? The tangled stories?
6. The Chinese, Dry Eye, his ambitions, his uncle’s control, the interviews, the threats, his discussions with Matthew, their being filmed, the revelation of the plane? Dry Eye and his uncle, turning the tables on him, the uncle’s death? His ambitions, threatening Mickey’s wife, the gun, his death?
7. The deal, the aristocracy, giving land and possibilities for drug cultivation? The range of meetings with the aristocracy, the hidden drug plantations? The breaking, the destruction? The personalities? The Russian connection, the confrontation with the young Russian, falling to his death? The interactions with Coach, his character, the links, control, his helping out, returning again to help Mickey?
8. His wife, her presence in the company, the touch of Lady Macbeth?
9. Hugh Grant’s Fletcher, appearance, accent, his link with the papers, his film script, the discussions with Mickey, the control, the humour, the tables turned on him? The violence?
10. The proprietor, his role, the threats?
11. The drug gangster genre, using the conventions, variations, comic touches, serious? The violence and language and its impact?
