Movie of the Week 48

The Gentlemen   2020   drama, crime

The Coach and his crew: Mark my words; The Gentlemen will win a 2021 Oscar for Best Achievement in Costume Design

This new film by writer/director Guy Ritchie is his best movie in over twenty years largely because it is a return to his roots – a British underworld tale packed with a cast of colorful rogues. In this case, we have a gentrified, gleefully non-PC, full blown gang war in Merry Olde England. 
 
The Gentlemen has A-list star power, and outstanding performances by lesser known actors. Matthew McConaughey plays the protagonist, Mickey Pearson, an ex-pat American weed kingpin, and Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey) play’s Mickey’s steely wife Rosalind. Mickey wants to retire and offers to sell his operation for $400 million in cash, but in a crucial scene, Mickey is warned by his wife, “The criminal underworld is a jungle, and it is dangerous for the king of the jungle to retire, for it signals weakness, and the jackals come running.” She, of course, is proven to be correct.
 
Mickey, however, is fortunate to have Raymond, his loyal, high IQ, right-hand man. Raymond, (well-played by underrated actor Charlie Hunnam) engages Fletcher, an evil tabloid journalist-cum-blackmailer, in a battle of wits akin to a chess match. The scenes with Raymond and Fletcher are tense, dark and strangely humorous. Veteran actor Hugh Grant plays Fletcher to perfection. Hugh Grant is noted for his trademark goofy charm in romance flicks; although, he's much better playing against type as a disgusting cad, and here he surpasses himself.
 
I won’t say much about the plot, because I actually want you to see The Gentlemen, but I do need to address the barrage of negative reviews by the PC media “movie experts” who were offended by this excellent movie. An entire Glee Club of SJW bullies pulled out the Race Card and sang “racist” and “anti-Semitic” in unison. Of course, the controversy this film has generated only makes it all the more enjoyable. The Jewish antagonist in the movie is not a good Jew; he is filled with Jewish greed and ambition. But this is a crime movie; what did you expect? Film critic Trevor Lynch sums it up best; “Ritchie has some plausible deniability on the anti-Semitic charges. First of all, there are no Good Guys in the movie, so the screenwriter [Ritchie] is simply being realistic when bad people say bad things. Beyond that, Guy Ritchie can probably say that some of his best friends are Jews, given that he and ex-wife Madonna were deep into Kabbalah [a mystic branch of Judaism] for several years. Also he speaks some Hebrew, and named his son Levi. I think Guy Ritchie [being a Jack Jew] is entitled to write a script with lines about Jews like they talk about themselves.” 
 
I highly recommend The Gentlemen – it is without a weak link and the best film of 2020, so far. There’s a bit of ferocity but nothing too distasteful. Much of the violence occurs off camera. The clever script is a bit too vulgar for my taste, but my delicate ears have survived far worse. The plot has some surprising twists and turns, the performances are excellent, and the pacing never fails in this jolly good story. 

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