Movie Breakdown: The Gentlemen

Pre-Screening Ramble:

I still have no idea as to why Guy Ritchie directed Aladdin.  Sure, he kind of pulled it off, but that type of movie is just not his wheelhouse at all.  The Gentlemen, however, looks cut from the same cloth as previous Ritchie winners, such as Snatch, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and RocknRolla, and that has me excited.

Post-Screening Ramble:

I had a good time with The Gentlemen.  It’s not what I would call a great movie – hell, Ritchie has plenty of other films that I’d rank above it – but what’s there is generally entertaining.  In it, Matthew McConaughey plays Micky Pearson, an American in the UK who has built a very efficient and profitable weed empire.  Unlike most movie drug lords though, the power he wields isn’t something he wants to hold onto, so The Gentlemen essentially revolves around his efforts to “get out of the game.”  Twists and turns are aplenty, and even though you’ll see most of them coming from a mile away, it’s fine because it’s the cast that makes this movie something worth watching.  McConaughey is his Lincoln car commercial guy but as a drug czar, Charlie Hunnam is Micky’s weirdly classy but violent right hand man, Colin Farrell is a goon but a crafty one with a heart of gold, Hugh Grant is a flirty sleazebag PI.  There are others with nutty characters, too, but those are the ones that really own the silliness and have the most fun with it.  You likely won’t remember much of what happens in this film, but their shameless performances will bandy about in your head for a bit.

We’re in the doldrums of January, which means you could do a whole lot worse than The Gentlemen.  It’s worth a matinee at least.

One Last Thought:

Jeremy Strong (Succession) is so bad in The Gentlemen.  Somehow, even in a movie packed with ridiculous, over the top characters, he manages to come off as too much.  Every single one of his scenes made me cringe.