Crime movies in the late 90s-early 2000s were weird. Every young director wanted to be the next Tarantino, characters almost exclusively communicated through obscure pop culture references and a movie wasn’t really cool unless its scenes were out of order. The Gentlemen is a throwback to that time. For director Guy Richie, this is a return to form because he was a major part of that scene with his first couple of films (Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). Whether or not you enjoy this movie largely depends on if you enjoy movies of that period. If you liked Richie’s early movies along with stuff like Four Rooms and The Boondock Saints, then you will probably love this. If you didn’t like those movies, then you won’t like this either. For me, I was smiling like it was 1999 because I love this kind of thing.
As is common with this type of film, the story is fairly simple but is made to seem complicated through various narrative devices. Like with any crime movie released when I was in high school, we’ve got a long framing scene, flashbacks, non-linear scenes, etc. But it all boils down to the fact that Matthew McConaughey plays England’s biggest drug lord and wants to retire. The opportunity to purchase his business brings out a lot of colorful gangster characters as they try to get a piece of the drug trade. This is a character-driven film, so the plot specifics are largely secondary.
Your enjoyment of The Gentlemen will depend on whether or not you find these characters, and their dialogue, to be entertaining. I honestly took awhile to adjust to this because they simply don’t write movies like this very much anymore. Much like Tarantino’s characters, these people don’t speak or behave like actual human beings. They are exaggerated to the point of being human cartoons. They speak in one-liners and pop culture references that are entirely inappropriate for people that are in life-or-death situations. Most importantly, they are cool and they are going to let you know how goddamn cool they are. Once I adjusted to that fact and that vibe, the movie became much more entertaining. But if you are looking for a serious mafia movie, watch The Irishman. If you want to watch a mafia movie that takes place in the world of adult Looney Tunes, then this is a hell of a lot of fun.
Since story is secondary here, the performances are of utmost importance and everyone seems to be having a fucking blast in this movie. Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam and Colin Farrell are almost quirky to a fault, but goddam are they entertaining. If you didn’t think that a man being drugged and forced to have sex with a pig could be hilarious, then Colin Farrell is here to show you how wrong you are. The one person that almost seems to be having too much fun is Hugh Grant. While it’s nice to see Grant branching out beyond his usual romantic comedy nonsense (Love, Actually sucks; there, I said it), but the man is chewing scenery like it’s his last meal on death row. I adjusted to his performance as the film went on, but he really needed to tone it down about five notches.
While this movie is a lot of fun, some of the late 90s/early 2000s tropes have become a bit grating. There is a long framing scene with Hugh Grant explaining the plot to Charlie Hunam that goes on way too goddamn long and only serves to include a lot of Tarantino-like “holy fuck, we’re cool” dialogue. Some scenes are out of order or have awkward narrations for no reason other than that’s how we did shit in 1999. Much like the dialogue, the script structure and narrative devices stress style over substance, nearly to a fault.
The Gentlemen is a really fun movie if you don’t mind the late 90s aesthetics. It isn’t as good as Tarantino’s work from that period, but it’s a solid entry in the quirky crime/drama/comedy genre that he inspired. If this came out 20 years ago, I could see my friends and I quoting the living shit out of it. Considering that I haven’t grown as a human being since middle school, I still really dug it. Proceed accordingly.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gentlemen_(2019_film)#/media/File:The_Gentlemen_poster.jpg
