A sneaky and slippery paparazzi named Fletcher (Hugh Grant) was commissioned by the tabloid publisher Big Dave (Eddie Marsan) to investigate the activities of criminal mastermind Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey). In the process, he dug up so much dirt on Mickey that the sum of 150 thousand pounds offered by Big Dave seemed negligible to him. Mickey is just planning to sell an underground network of marijuana plantations to an American Jew, Matthew (Jeremy Strong), for 400 million pounds. Fletcher logically decides that Mickey will gladly donate 20 million for this amount, and visits the estate of Raymond (Charlie Hunnam), Mickey’s right-hand man, to discuss the matter. At the same time, he doesn’t behave like a future millionaire, his cheapness is still there: he’s happy to get free drinks, or to have a steak grilled on a newfangled grill.
Ray doesn’t give in to Fletcher’s initial onslaught and demands proof that the materials he has collected are worth 20 million. This opens up the opportunity for Fletcher to play his one-man show. He has already portrayed the story he has collected as a script for a movie, which, if Ray refuses to pay the money, he will offer to Miramax. And now Fletcher is inspired to tell about the ingenuity of Oxford graduate Mickey Pearson in growing marijuana in England, about the financial and moral decline of the English aristocracy, about the seemingly naive Jewish Matthew, who is ready to buy Mickey’s business, about the insidious Chinese mafia, which has its own interest in this business, and about many other interesting ladies and gentlemen.
With Gentlemen, Guy Ritchie traveled back in time to the beginning of his career, when he made two crime comedies that became cult films almost immediately: “Cards, Money and Two Guns and The Big Score. The new movie deserves attention even without these memories, but it’s worth mentioning. Moreover, if you haven’t seen Cards, Money and Two Guns, you should immediately catch up on your debts – they are worth it. In all three films, the director has crammed a lot of colorful characters and storylines, each of which, at first glance, go their own way, but sooner or later intersect into one big bloody ball of violence.
“The Gentlemen is not a copy of the aforementioned films; it has its own signature features and clumsy flaws. The very title of the film hints at high society, although the word “gentlemen” is used in a somewhat ironic sense. But before, there were no gentlemen at all, all the main and supporting characters came from the criminal underbelly and behaved accordingly. Here, gentlemen with a certificate appear on the screen – English hereditary aristocrats without money or conscience who cooperate with the underworld to maintain their social status. Against their background, the elegant Mickey and the even more elegant Ray, although they do not have blue blood in their family, deserve the name “gentlemen” much more. They have expensive suits, well-groomed hair and beards, and, most importantly, they have dignity.
The whole film consists of two conventional parts that only indirectly intersect with each other. The first one is Fletcher’s paparazzi’s story about Mickey’s business, and the second one is the adventures of the criminal mastermind himself. Formally, Fletcher acts only as a narrator for the story, but he takes up so much screen time that the scene at Ray’s estate looks like a separate unique performance. In addition, it involves two super colorful characters – Fletcher and Ray. Hugh Grant perfectly portrayed the slippery bastard who encroaches on Mickey’s millions and does so with unique enthusiasm. This is probably the first role of this kind for the usually romantic Hugh Grant, and he has a blast here.
But Fletcher probably wouldn’t have looked so funny if it weren’t for Charlie Hunnam. His Raymond created the perfect contrast for the insidious paparazzi. Fletcher is wearing a leather jacket and turtleneck, while Raymond is wearing a shirt and tie. Fletcher wears a beard that has long gone out of fashion, while Raymond’s beard is groomed by the best barbershops in London. Fletcher demonstrates ostentatious confidence, while Raymond easily proves that he is the alpha male of the two. In the scenes with the other characters, Raymond is just as dominant, fading into the shadows only when the “king of the jungle” Mickey appears on the scene.
Although Mickey is the main figure of the entire movie and played by Matthew McConaughey himself, for me he is only the third best character in Gentlemen. He has too little self-irony for a movie like this. And when he starts preaching truths about lions and jungles in a preachy tone, the level of pathos starts to go seriously over the top. And there is nothing good about it.
But who can boast of unsurpassed self-irony is Colin Farrell. His martial arts coach, who goes by the name of Coach, is a song. If you remember how Farrell played Alexander the Great in the 2004 movie Alexander, then here is the complete opposite, both externally and internally. Although internally, he may look like the king of all Greeks. A funny checkered suit does not prevent Coach from accepting defeat with honor and demonstrating his willingness to buy up his sins. I didn’t expect to see the thug Farrell at all (even less than the paparazzi Grant) and I enjoyed what I saw.
Among the actors, I would also like to mention Elliot Sumner. He played Laura, the drug-addicted daughter of impoverished aristocrats, but he attracts attention not for this, but for his repulsive appearance, non-binary gender, and his family. Elliot Sumner’s father is Gordon Sumner, better known as Sting. And all fans of the movie “Cards, Money and Two Guns” remember that Sting played the protagonist’s father in it. And now, 20 years later, Sting’s child is playing in the spiritual descendant of Cards, Money.
