My first cinema trip of 2020 was to see The Gentlemen and, having not even watched the trailer, I had no expectations. The only thing I knew before seeing it was that it was directed by Guy Ritchie and the cast included some incredible actors; Hugh Grant, Colin Farrell, Henry Golding and Matthew McConaughey, to name a few. So I hoped it would be pretty good and I was not disappointed. This film is one of the best films I've seen in a long time.
The Gentlemen follows the story of drug lord Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) as he plans to sell his marijuana empire in order to take a step back from his criminal activities and retire. Drama quickly ensues as criminals of the underworld attempt to overthrow Pearson, the "King" of the industry. It's a classic British, gritty crime-gang film so expect guns, henchmen, murder, fighting, drugs and a lot of swearing. The c-bomb is probably dropped at least once in every sentence. Unsurprisingly, its rated 18 although there isn't really any violence or gore, which you would usually expect from this genre of film.
It's fast-paced, there's a lot going on, and you never really know who to be suspicious of until the very end. The characters are really well-written and Hugh Grant's portrayal of Fletcher, a sneaky disloyal underdog that wears sunglasses indoors, is genius. It's probably my new favourite role that he's taken on and he has some of the best lines, along with Coach (Colin Farrell). I thought the script was perfect, aside from the unnecessary overuse of the aforementioned c-word. It was just the right mixture of witty and funny - I lost count of the amount of times I caught myself still laughing about something that had happened in a previous scene.
The only small criticisms I have are that the storyline is quite disjointed. It jumps around a lot between Hugh Grant's character in the present day recalling what has previously happened, through the use of flashbacks. So if you're the kind of person who can't put their phone away and concentrate on the screen for a couple of hours, you'll probably struggle with this one. It needs your full attention and even though I was completely invested, there were times when I thought "hang on, who's that? Have we seen this guy before?". I also found Hugh Grant's accent quite distracting. It is one of the best comedic elements of the film (I hope that was intentional..) but at the same time it did just sound like he was doing an impersonation of Tom Hardy, which I found difficult to overlook.
Apart from those minor critiques, overall I loved it and would 100% recommend this film. Even if crime isn't your go-to genre, I think most people will enjoy it purely for the humour and eccentricity of the characters and storylines. Plus, Henry Golding as a baddie.
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