The Gentlemen is out and Guy Ritchie has returned to his crime film-making roots. The film begins with a pre-title sequence with an American marijuana dealer based in London named Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) in a situation that will have the audience asking the question, how did this happen?

Then we join Fletcher (Hugh Grant), who is visiting Pearson’s right-hand man Raymond (Charlie Hunnam). Pearson is looking to leave his life of crime, but the downside is that various other criminals want his fortune for themselves. They include an up-and-coming Asian gangster (Henry Golding), another American (Jeremy Strong), and a boxing coach (Colin Farrell), who claims to be all about keeping young men out of crime, but who will still do gangster stuff from time to time.

McConaughey is good enough in the role and it’s interesting to see him play a gangster. Hunnam also manages to stand out in most of his scenes but the real surprise in this film is Hugh Grant who is unrecognizable at first, likeable and funny. It catches you off guard to spend time looking for Hugh Grant only to realise he’s there in front of you.

This being a Guy Ritchie script and a crime film, all the tropes you would expect are here. There are a lot of strong London accents, violence and swearing. There is a rather odd, dark sense of humour throughout, including a joke involving Barry White that whether you’re a fan or not should make you laugh.

So much was going on in this that the music escaped me, except for That’s Entertainment by The Jam that played over the end credits. There’s also a character called Ernie, played by Bugsy Malone who is a real rapper. A fight takes place involving him that then becomes a rap video and that is the film’s most “out there” moment – there is some humour to be had in the idea of something like this happening in a Guy Ritchie film, although I’m not entirely clear why it had to be there at all.

The few problems here are confined to the pacing. The film takes time to get going, but once it does it barely stops and keeps you engaged… until the third act, when it starts dragging again, mostly for the sake of intensity, which I can understand, but a bit of light trimming and moving things along faster wouldn’t have hurt.

The Gentlemen is a promising return to form for Guy Ritchie with a very memorable performance from Hugh Grant. I really believe Ritchie may have put his recent run of less successful films behind him, as long as those who see his work as offensive and homophobic don’t get their way. Because The Gentlemen is neither of those things, it’s nothing more than a quality film from a skilled storyteller who has clearly shown that making crime films is what he is good at… and not films about a motion-capture Will Smith genie with a six-pack.

Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: Guy Ritchie (screenplay by), Guy Ritchie (story by)
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery

Andrew Moodie
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