"The Gentlemen" Film Review

"The Gentlemen" Film Review

Rating: 5/5

By: Nathaniel Simpson

    The story of Guy Ritchie's film "The Gentlemen" is told by a private detective named Fletcher (played by the wonderful Hugh Grant). He shows up at a man named Raymond's (Charlie Hunnam) house, and asks him to reenact a screenplay that he has just written. What ensues is a fun 2 hour film of pure mayhem and deception.

    We follow the story of an American, Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), who wants to sell his highly profited and sought after marijuana business in London. However, unbeknownst to Mickey or his colleagues, this triggers off a chain of events that range from blackmail to murder. 

    The main actors are stellar in this film. Look at all the interactions between Fletcher and Raymond. Grant does an amazing job of portraying Fletcher's loud and outspoken attitude with hints of homosexuality mixed in. We can obviously see that Raymond is uncomfortable with Fletcher's presence. Fletcher has been investigating the events going on in Mickey's life; with Raymond as Mickey's right hand man, he's worried they're all going to get busted. 

    The interactions between Mickey and his rival known as Dry Eye (Henry Golding) are great as well. You can see the pure hatred that the two characters have for each other. These scenes show how great the two actors are, and they really steal the film. 

    Without a doubt, the wardrobe in this film is some of the best I've ever seen in a motion picture. Why does the wardrobe matter, you might ask? In my opinion, the wardrobe is one of the biggest parts that makes this film great. Look at how every single person in the film is dressed. Every one of them tells a different story based on their clothing. For example, look at Coach, played by the talented Colin Farrell. He wears a designer tracksuit for most of the film. What this says about his character is that he is not really a business-type of person, but still wants to look nice. He is able to move comfortably when fighting; which will come in handy with his talent of hand to hand combat. 

    What I enjoy a great deal about Guy Ritchie's films is that he shies away from the grotesque in his films. This is evident in most of his films, and it works extremely well in the last half of this film. Let's look at the scene where a man is basically forced to perform sexual acts on a pig. We don't see the actual acts from the video that was recorded, but we hear the sounds and see the disturbed faces of our characters. This is effective as we have to imagine in our heads what our characters are seeing instead of actually knowing. This causes the viewer to be grateful for not seeing the scene at the same time as wanting to see the scene. Ritchie has shown his understanding that implied scenes work very well if done correctly. 

    This film, which was written and directed by Ritchie, was released after his critical and commercial success of the live action Disney film, Aladdin. Even though nothing can beat his older films he made when he was younger, such as "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", this film came pretty close. Lucky for us, Ritchie has announced a TV spin-off for our characters. I'm excited to see where that goes, and let's just hope it's as good, if not better, than this excellent film.