Most movies today have two irritating qualities; ambition and incompetence. One might think of the MCU and the way it has pissed through billions of dollars. One might think of Zach Cregger’s horror of a not-so-horror movie ‘Weapons’. One might think of Greta Gerwig’s plastic ‘Barbie’. Or…well, three of anything pays in the coin of misfortune, and recounting more than three bad movies is mis-fortunate. Yes, I could have written unfortunate but it would ruin…but what is art if it has to be explained? One must express it! And I am here to express a contempt for a movie industry that is so ambitious with such utter incompetence. Many people, particularly the netizen commentariat of ‘Film Twitter’, often harangue people about how they ‘ought to go to the movie theater more’. They wrap it in the language of faux-art, speaking of the movie theaters as a place of ‘gathering’ or some kind of grand place of magic and ritual. To most of us who hear this claptrap about the eras in which movies ‘were important’, we snicker. We remember what theaters were actually for: hand jobs, expensive snacks, and disgusting bathrooms–and, every now and again, a wonderful experience. Such an experience required one thing: a good movie. So to the extollers of ‘movie-going’, I say: when they make a good movie, I will go to the theater. Until then, I will get my snacks and hand jobs at home.

But I am kvetching with a purpose. As I have spent more and more time in movieland, I have ceased searching for art or high culture or–well, anything beyond a good, competent product. It is a sad, not all that funny joke that the people who extol the virtues of older films seem to forget that these movies were written by hacks, who had their credit stolen from them by pretentious directors and greedy producers. Usually, those who like films older than the 1960’s combine the most irritating ignorance of film history with a high opinion of…well, their own opinion of film. The distance between the height of their opinion and their ignorance of film history is far enough that if one makes that leap, they will kill themselves. As they caress their favorite kitsch and hiss and growl at the youth (and Disney adults) who clutch their MCU or Twilight, I find myself less and less willing to talk to anyone about film. Is there art in film? Yes. It is very rare. The only place where art is more rare is in the opinions of the film commentators of our day. And so, I do not look for art, since art will find me first. I look for a competent product, and I have found it in Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Gentlemen’ (2019).

Some of you will sneer. I suggest you go back to the basements you dwell in, where you worship anything black and white. I found ‘The Gentlemen’ to be a (belated, for me) breath of fresh air. This is because the movie seeks little else but to tell a story, where all that goes with it is subsumed to this purpose. It is also rather creative with its plot: a film about a criminal empire that almost gets taken down by a tabloid writer, played marvelously by Hugh Grant? Interesting take, I say! With a glitzy but well known cast (Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, the aforementioned Hugh Grant, Colin Farrell, Jeremy Strong, Michelle Dockery, Henry Golding), Ritchie directs a story that makes one wonder who, exactly, is the ‘protagonist’ or the ‘antagonist’. With this glitz, we do not get an all-too-bright nausea nor a too dull screen time bidding war between well known faces. One gets a sleek aesthetic of suits and pistols and paperweights, with a mix of Americana and an imagined British stateliness that does not jar for a second. You are in England–but it is the one imagined by Ritchie. All of this is buoyed by a competent film production: good lighting, swift and clean dialogue, and great camera placement.

Now, to admit a little bias, my favorite actor (second to George Sanders, cease your hissing!) is Hugh Grant. He is a competent, clever, and curmudgeonly actor whose career I have admired. His time playing plastic romantic leads, for which most movie goers know him for, often overshadowed his earliest roles. I am thinking of his debut in ‘Privileged’ (1982) and ‘Maurice’ (1987), as well as a slew of period films. If one watches Grant’s filmography chronologically, one sees an almost cinematic arc in his career–from an actor in interesting films, he suffers nobly through rom-com slosh only to come out on the other side as an actor very sure of his talents and therefore willing to experiment with the bad (Unfrosted, Wonka), the good (Cloud Atlas, Heretic, Florence Foster Jenkins) and now has found a home as part of the cinematic troupe headed by Guy Ritchie (The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Operation Fortune, The Gentlemen). I leave my opinions on various other films (Glass Onion, Paddington 2, D&D: Honor Among Thieves) for another article.

Interest declared! Yes, I am a fan of Grant–I also mention it because most of the story is told, by Hugh Grant’s character Fletcher. He does a fantastic job of telling us a story about…well, as seasoned readers of my reviews and columns know, if a narrative is good, I do not recount it to you, the reader. If it is bad, I spill all the secrets. It is a little unorthodox I know, but this comes from my view that the critic’ roles, especially in our digital circus, is to warn the customer when things are bad, but to entice the customer to try a product for themselves when they judge a product to be good–not to give them a way to vicariously experience it. You must go watch it.

That said, the customer needs reasons–or they should want them, especially in our deregulated dystopia. So, the reasons for why you ought to watch ‘The Gentlemen’: this movies seeks to tell a story and nothing else (I repeat myself for the sake of the audience). It’s aesthetics, to be literary for a moment, are Chekhovian in their cleanliness–everything is used for the story. Even the glass of whiskey Fletcher drinks at the beginning is, in the end, an important part of the story. This story is a melodrama about a plot as old as time: the story of a criminal, Mickey Pearson (played by Matthew McConaughey) who wants to leave crime behind. Many movies have done this theme better, be it ‘Straight Time’ (1978), ‘The Outfit’ (2013), ‘The Town’ (2010) and…well, you know what I said about anything that comes in threes. Misfortune! But ‘The Gentlemen’ retells this story with a great deal of competence, helped along by the usual exaggerated violence and beautiful, tragic people. It’s distinguishing quality is the way it weaves several story lines into a movie that conveys the cunning of an underworld that is the stuff of fantasy: trim suits, secret ‘paper weight guns’, a do-gooder Coach (played by Collin Farrell) and his merry band of rapper criminals (Robin Hood is very much with us) and a mix of devious planning and hilarious accident. One enjoys the film–and too few films these days meet this minimal requirement.

The flaws in the movie are simple, specifically the following: one, no one believes that Mickey and Rosalind Pearson (played by Michelle Dockery) love each other. Michelle Dockery plays the hard-ass brilliantly, but as a lover she never gives up her cold detachment. Loving her has all the qualities of hugging a boulder as one sinks into icy waters. She is not helped by Matthew McConaughey, who seems like he is talking to his sister, not a woman he loves. It is not until Dockery rubs his balls that we get the…well, even hints require subtlety so…the point? the clue? Fletcher tells us they are married and devoted to one another, but you can’t tell until this phallic brush. And still, as she touches his jewels, you expect her to grab and twist.

Second, The Coach and his merry band seem, if not out of place, to be oddly placed. His entrance into this world is acceptable: a group of his protegees break into Pearson’s lab, and so he has to pay the criminals back. He comes and apologizes, literal hat in hand. And then Raymond, Mickey Pearson’s right hand man (played by Charlie Hunnam)makes his price: bring me the guy who told you where the lab was. And at that moment you think The Coach will have his own arc, sweating over the contradictions of his do-gooder life and the bad choices to save his crew…but then he already has the criminal they need? How did he know? And then he saves Raymond again, after the ‘debt’ is paid…it makes no sense. One can only speculate. My guess? That Farrell’s onscreen presence is so powerful, Ritchie wanted to have him on screen as much as he could. It does not break the story, but it turns an otherwise earnest character into a comedy hoofer.

With its unreliable narrator, glamorous violence, a mix of power-politik and small moments of comedy–well, this critic was suckered in. The moments of comedy might have been the most creative, and the most risky, parts of this competent movie: small flashes of satire about action movies and their ‘chase scenes’ are done but not overdone or over-absurd, like Matthew Vaughn’s exaggerated farces in ‘The Kingsman’ and its sequel. Ritchie and company could have done without them, and yet having them in breaks the tension–without breaking the narrative–of the story. On a personal note, I loved the mise-en-abyme of this movie, with the idea that its author, we assume, is summarily executed by Raymond. Postmodern cinema at its finest! The story, one snickers, was true, even if its author’s motives were for little else but selling his wares to the highest bidder. Fletcher is my favorite character in the entire story. Can you tell? He is exactly what every writer is, if they are any good: a great lover of speculation mixed with a clever imagination and cynical intentions. I rooted for him: what do I care of the alleyway fights of those well dressed criminals who want new ways of exploiting the marks for…what? Personal wealth? For a sunset retirement? For the love of the sport? Fletcher sought to, and almost pulled off, swindle the criminals. And all for the simplest motive: he wanted money. He was the cleverest one of the criminals, most of whom only have physical and group force to explain their victory. Fletcher had to think! He had to give away the truth without giving away his own position–and to find time to write the script, to haughtily bring it to people who are not even your enemies but who have mere barbarian contempt for you–and to do so with only your wits. Fletcher leans on competence, much like this film, and he almost wins–hell, should have won!

I always root for the trickster. And I will always enjoy this movie.