The Gentlemen (2020) [Movie Review]

Dir: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Colin Farrell and Hugh Grant

Dur: 1 hr 53 mins

Genre: Drama (In my opinion) but IMDB calls it an Action-Comedy!

Rating: 2/10

PG: Lots of foul language, smoking in nearly every scene, drugs, alcohol, violence and even an interrupted rape scene in which nothing explicit is shown.

The Gentlemen opened up to great reception. I remember seeing it pop up every time I looked for latest movies. It looked good; it sounded good; its trailer was pretty good but its end product was a total let down. I don’t know where to start with trying to say what a big discouragement this film was. So I’ll start at the beginning.

The film opens with an end scene that directly throws us into the thick of the plot. I confess that the opening scene kind of built up the drama that I hoped would follow. The opening scene got my attention! What followed only whetted my appetite further and had me drooling for the film to actually begin; there was an amazing and awe-inspiring graphic animation of the characters and credits, that was incredibly well done. It showed who played which character and through a brief animation showed us what to expect from that character.

However, after that ended the film took a whole leap backward into narrative mode. Now that is a style that is sometimes used to good effect except here, the film is narrated by a single character who is speaking to another significant character in real time about the past. That idea in itself is not bad but what is bad is that that was made the primary basis of the whole narrative. This is where I think the movie really fails; it turns out to be a dramatized audio. There is greater emphasis given to the narration of the story then to the dramatization of it! It seemed to me as if the director was aware of this and just to compensate people like me who feel cheated, he tries out some camera and animation tricks that don’t exactly suit the genre but nevertheless add spunk to the direction. Now I don’t really have a problem with the mixing of styles but I do have a problem when that is used as a cheap trick.

The script is rather poor and has an unnecessary amount of foul language but I guess that is to keep up the whole underground, crime setting. The camera work is exquisite and that along with the animation effects is what really helped this movie score a 3 rather than a 0! The film boasts of an ensemble cast who are sadly unused and un-challenged. They all deliver mediocre performances but I guess that’s the best that they could do with a garbage-worthy script.

The film seems to romanticize smoking, both smoking in general but more, smoking drugs (in fact more of the latter). Nearly every other scene involves one character or the other smoking, and not simply smoking but smoking in a dramatized and eye-catching fashion. In case you choose to miss it, the director has gone out of his way to ensure you don’t by focusing solely on the act of smoking! I understand that the film rests on the drug business but was it necessary to romanticize the unpleasant aspects? They film makes it abundantly clear that drugs are a messy or should I say bloody, business. The effects it has on those who use it are as clearly shown as the effects it has on those who deal with it. From this point, of view the film is educative but I don’t think there is anybody who is not aware of either of these things and so the lesson (if there was one) was wasted.

I’ll be honest, if it were not for my friends and my responsibility for making arrangements I would not have given this film nearly 2 hours of my life. It was simply not worth it. I’m surprised that the film is marketed as an action-comedy. It had about as much action as its trailer and its comedy was so subtle and sparse that it hardly tickled the funny bone. It contains quite a few racial slurs and treats objectifies women to the point of depicting them as eye-candy and subservient to men. The film is really bad overall, and it surprises me that it has still managed to make it as the 7^th highest grossing film of the year. But this has been a bad year so far and so I don’t bother too much about this ranking, it could be equally bad. 

Let me conclude with this final exhortation, no matter how bored you are with this pandemic situation, don’t waste your time watching this poor excuse for a film. Learn a language, practice a skill, read a book, heck watch Into the Night but don’t and I repeat, don’t give this film any screen time. It’s wasted a lot of people’s time already including mine; don’t let it waste yours!       

Trailer: The Only Thing Worth Watching