Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

They may be suited, booted and dripping in money, but these men are anything but gentle.

The Synopsis
Michael Pearson aka Micky (Matthew McConaughey) is looking to retire and sell on his empire to an American businessman. However another London crime ring smell the change in the wind and want to cut into the deal.

Sleazy and conniving tabloid journalist Fletcher (Hugh Grant) has picked up a story on the big time cannabis selling Mickey and all his illegal goings on, and his silence won’t come cheap. In order to get the £20million he’s after, Fletcher has to first convince Mickey’s second, Raymond (Charlie Hunnam) of what he knows and how much it’s worth.

The story unfolds and sharks are circling as a string of seemingly unconnected events leads Micky to look from his throne to the door and consider whether it’s better to hold on to his power and position, or leave it all to go up in smoke.

“You couldn’t lift a wheel of cheese you cunt”

The Good
I was admittedly on the fence about seeing this movie (mostly out of laziness) until I decided to just go for it – and I’m glad I did. The way I beamed when I heard the line “Let me tell you a story” just goes to show what a sucker I am for a Guy Ritchie movie.

If you’ve seen Snatch, or Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels then you know sometimes the who’s who with all the nicknames can get incredibly confusing until the story gets rolling. With that being said The Gentlemen was very easy to follow, it was stripped down to the necessary characters only, which meant you focused on the story alone instead of making sure you weren’t confusing one character for another.

One of my favourite things about this movie was “The Toddlers” led by Ernie (Bugzy Malone) the young, small time thieves/rappers who filmed their burglary and uploaded it to the internet as part of a rap battle (wearing masks of course). Not only was this scene clever and funny it also showed that Ritchie has his finger on the pulse of modern culture as wearing masks in music videos is something unique to UK Drill Rappers.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Matthew McConaughey on the big screen (another pull for me seeing The Gentlemen) and it was great to see another team up of Richie and Hunnam since King Arthur Legend of the Sword (it really didn’t take me that long to bring up this movie this year did it). But for me a nod really has to go to Hugh Grant, who has really hit his stride with his more recent roles such as Jeremy Thorpe in A Very English Scandal. Watching him play the self-serving, money hungry and slightly strange Fletcher you often forgot he was Hugh Grant entirely.

The Bad
There really isn’t much to complain about with this movie if you ask me, but I’ll always find something to pick up on just to keep things fair because let’s face it: no movie is perfect.

The first of the two things is when Fletcher was painting the picture of a scene for Raymond, using film language. As he did so the movie began to mimic his speech and proceeded to show the graphic of an old style film camera on screen. It’s a bit weird to explain, but the long and short of it was that it took me out of the movie as it didn’t match the tone. This technique was only used the once which makes me think there was no reason to use it at all as it wasn’t relevant to the style of the movie as a whole.

The majority of the movie is told from Fletcher and Raymond’s point of view, where Fletcher is explaining what he knows of Mickey’s deeds. It’s a good anchor point for audiences so they know what is taking place in the past, the present and the future. However it did get a bit boring and repetitive being snatched back to that anchor point time and time again.

The Conclusion
A funny and modernised take to the old school London Gangster movies we’re used to seeing from Richie that will undoubtedly convert the new school of film watchers to his ways.