The Gentlemen Review
- G
- Feb 8, 2020
- 3 min read
I just realized I'm operating on like 14 different metrics in rating films and it's starting to confuse me. Eh, whatever. Movies like these have to have someone on the cast whose last name is Strong apparently.
Story- This movie both subverted and met my expectations in the story field. It's essentially told in a linear-ish fashion, quite literally. The man at the center of it all is Ray (Hunnam) and he's the soft-spoken enforcer for Mickey Pearson (McConaughey) in jolly ol' England. Pearson is a big-time drug supplier and is looking to get out of the business and sell his company. Then, things start to unravel pretty quickly. The story was told in 'Fight Club'-esque storytelling, in that it was very methodical in what it revealed and when. Initially I thought the movie suffered from what I dubbed the "Ritchie exposition dump" which he does in nearly all of his movies. In this movie it makes more sense given how the story is told, but it still can get a bit distracting. I do like the constant one upping of the characters within the story.
Cinematography/Props/Editing- Overall, these aspects are good. There was a familiar but welcoming beauty to the camerawork, and the editing elevated the somewhat "slower" character driven moments to more frenetic. The movie takes place in present day, so not much to write home about here particularly.
Acting- As I have in other ensemble cast movies, I'm just going to touch on the people I connected with the most in the film. Starting with Charlie Hunnam, I feel like he's been in a lot of movies but I couldn't name one of his besides that King Arthur movie which looked abhorrent and I didn't see. He reminds me of a few other kind of "action stand-ins" in movies, but he did a fine job. I thought he played a smart silent type well. Hugh Grant was hilarious in this movie. I really liked his borderline slapstick delivery, and he was the clear comedic relief here, fittingly enough since he plays a huge part in the story. Matthew McConaughey had a very different performance I feel from most of his other parts in movies. He treads a fine line but for the most part you do actually kind of like him, or I felt I did. He was very dynamic in the role, eccentric for sure. Last but not least, my favorite little part of the movie- Colin Farrell. I may be biased because I really enjoy him as an actor, and he has one of the funniest line deliveries of any of his movies. Sadly they spoiled it in the trailer but I did still laugh.
Directing- Guy Ritchie has a very unique style of directing for sure. I do enjoy pretty much all of his movies, and I think that this was a great addition to his portfolio. One of the minor issues I have with him though is, like a lot of other seasoned directors, they stick to their same rigmarole and don't branch out into other genres. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I know I personally have a few genres I'd prefer to stick to but surprising results can come from branching out.
Soundtrack/Audio- I'm writing this a few days after having seen the movie, and I didn't really write anything about the soundtrack. One thing I do remember is a track that was created for the movie where some of the characters rap over it, and that was pretty interesting. Other than that, it was serviceable.
Final Verdict- B+. It felt like a bit too many eccentricities were put into the film to the point where it felt like a tribute to Edgar Wright or a superhero movie (I still couldn't quite put my finger on the familiarity of it save for Ritchie's previous works) but overall it was a very fun film.
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