3.5 stars. Rated R, for considerable profanity and violence
By Derrick Bang
Of late, director Guy Ritchie has focused his signature razzle-dazzle on mainstream adventure films such as Sherlock Holmes and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
(We’ll overlook last year’s ill-advised, live-action handling of Disney’s Aladdin.)
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| Mickey (Matthew McConaughey) and his wife Rosalind (Michelle Dockery) are somewhat surprised to be discussing their illegal business endeavors during a posh dinner party laden with lords, ladies and political movers and shakers. |
To be sure, they’ve been fun action romps … but they lacked the viciously snarky attitude of the distinctly British crime dark-dark-darkcomedies — notably 1998’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and 2000’s Snatch — that made his rep, early on.
(Star Matthew McConaughey defines the Ritchie touch as “language, punch, humor, sleight-of-hand, chin-up and double-dare-ya.” How right he is.)
The Gentlemen, I’m happy to report, is a welcome return to form … and then some. Aside from filling the screen with flamboyant, attitude-laden bad guys who delight in out-strutting each other, this film’s script — co-written by Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies — is filled with delectable twists and double-crosses. Every time we think we know what’s going down, Ritchie & Co. pull the rug out … not merely once, nor twice, but at least half a dozen times.
And while that might render the plot a confusing mess in lesser hands, have faith: Ritchie knows precisely what he’s doing. I couldn’t help applauding, when the credits finally rolled, at the sheer audacity of what had gone down for 113 exhilarating minutes.
The core plot: Ex-pat American entrepreneur Mickey Pearson (McConaughey) sits atop England’s most ambitiously massive illegal marijuana empire, which he has, um, cultivated for years. He’s the lion of London’s criminal underworld, and takes pains to ensure that everybody knows it.
But middle age has made Mickey long for a conventional life with his equally formidable, hot-bod wife, Rosalind (Michelle Dockery). He’s therefore looking to sell his empire, and the interested buyer is Matthew (Jeremy Strong), another American criminal kingpin looking to expand his territory.
Mickey looks and acts like the regal lion he has become. Matthew looks and sounds like an accountant. The disparity is intriguing.
Despite Mickey’s prudence, word of his “stepping down” circulates, drawing the attention of other Interested Parties: none more eager than Dry Eye (Henry Golding), a wannabe Asian crime boss looking to get out from under the thumb of head honcho Lord George (Tom Wu).
On the sidelines, Mickey has earned the wrath of weaselly tabloid publisher/editor Big Dave (Eddie Marsan), who’s determined to puncture the “civilized” aristocratic façade that Mickey and Rosalind affect while rubbing shoulders with England’s rich, famous and political. (Truth be told, it’s because said toffs refuse to give Big Dave the time of day.)
To that end, Big Dave has hired sleazy private investigator Fletcher (Hugh Grant) to dig up all dirt on the marijuana magnate.
Ah, but Ritchie & Co. adopt an extremely devious method of depicting these events. After a fleeting — and eyebrow-lifting — prologue, we cut to Ray (Charlie Hunnam), Mickey’s savvy and wholly trusted consigliere, as he returns home late one evening. He’s surprised to find Fletcher in attendance, and the squalid gumshoe has a story to tell, which he delivers like a screenplay.
Indeed, Fletcher has writtena screenplay, which he dangles beneath Ray’s patient but — we can tell — lethal gaze.
At which point, the film’s events become totally meta, unfolding via a series of already-happened flashbacks, the smarmy Fletcher sometimes embellishing details for his own amusement. He even name-checks classic film references, while (as director) Ritchie obligingly inserts smash-cut glimpses of clapboard and old-school movie camera.
The result is an impressively audacious roller coaster ride that — at every turn — threatens to jump the rails. But, rest assured, Ritchie never loses control.
These increasingly chaotic events are anchored by the aforementioned assortment of striking characters, each personified by an actor not only at the top of his (and her) game, but clearly enjoying every minute. As do we.
Grant, initially unrecognizable, is a stitch as the opportunistic, hilariously slimy Fletcher: all tics and twitches, forever behaving as crudely as possible, in order to get a rise out of the unflappably placid Ray. Hunnam, in turn, has the outward bearing of Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler Alfred … with a psychotic side that emerges when his carefully controlled temper finally explodes.
Such sudden, savage shifts are breathtaking, and Hunnam leaves no doubt: Ray is not somebody to mess with.
Dockery — enjoying yet another opportunity to veer 180 degrees from Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary Crawley — is introduced when Rosalind, sporting impossibly high stiletto heels and a dress cut down to her waist, visits her female-staffed car chop shop (her own indulgence, alongside Mickey’s more ambitious empire). Dockery is tart-tongued and sexy as hell — in a manner as exaggerated as everybody else — and it’s clear that Rosalind and Mickey are wholly devoted to each other.
More to the point, they respect each other.
McConaughey is all polish and self-assurance as Mickey, lord of all he surveys. But the cool, genteel exterior doesn’t quite conceal the coiled ferocity that has kept him on top for so long. Even amid so many lethal characters, McConaughey leaves no doubt that he’s capable of more savagery than anybody else.
Golding’s Dry Eye is a classic case of over-compensating; the young gang leader desperately wants to be regarded as a bad-ass, and therefore tries much too hard. But although Dry Eye’s boastful flashes of aggression mostly prompt tolerant pity from the likes of Mickey and Lord George, Golding adds a note of cunning unpredictability; Dry Eye is impatient enough to act rashly … and stupidly.
Strong’s Matthew — concealed behind owl-lensed glasses, and looking like a mild breeze would knock him down — is the outlier: nowhere near as flashy or flamboyant as all the others, and therefore earning our closest scrutiny. Marsan is a hoot as the loathsome, forever shrieking Big Dave: personifying all the gutter qualities we’d expect from a tabloid publisher.
Heck, even the smaller roles are well cast and memorably played: most notably Chidi Ajugo as Bunny, one of Mickey’s head enforcers.
All of which brings us to Colin Farrell.
His character — Coach — doesn’t arrive until midway through these chaotic proceedings; he nonetheless gets the best entrance of all. The hard-boiled Coach runs a boxing gym for local disadvantaged youth, who regard him as something of a Pied Piper. He’s ethical to a (hilarious) fault, but he also recognizes that boys will be boys, and that his “lads” can be prone to, well, rash behavior.
Even in a story laden with colorfully outrageous characters, Farrell is worth the price of admission; I could watch this film repeatedly, just to enjoy anew the brio with which he delivers Coach’s dialogue. And yet — ironically — one of Farrell’s funniest moments comes late in the game, without a single word, and merely via a hand gesture (not the one you’re assuming).
Speaking of late in the game, this film’s meta sensibilities become even more impudent in the final scenes, to a daring degree not attempted since Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles.
Ritchie’s firm grasp notwithstanding, a few touches suffer needless excess: notably an ill-advised raid on one of Mickey’s skunk farms, which becomes a raucous social media experience, set to a paralyzingly loud hip-hop number. (I got the sense that Ritchie was trying for a modern update on the initial Droog fracas in 1971’s A Clockwork Orange, which Stanley Kubrick choreographed to Rossini’s “The Thieving Magpie.” But that worked better.)
And although a sidebar “rescue” of young Laura Pressfield (Eliot Sumner) from “bad company” plays an important role in what follows, her eventual fate is real-world cruel, and completely out of synch with the rest of the film’s deliberately arch tone.
Mind you, Ritchie’s style isn’t for the faint of heart; he’s as smugly irreverent — and frequently tasteless — as Quentin Tarantino, albeit with a decidedly British accent. The easily offended are apt to look askance as the rest of us laugh uncontrollably when a low-level thug gets run over by a train.
What can I say? The cheeky rhythm and mischievous flow of Ritchie’s filmmaking style are an irresistible guilty pleasure. And so is The Gentlemen.
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