The Gentlemen (2024) Review. Former soldier Eddie (Theo James) settles in to take care of household matters after inheriting his family’s manor in the English countryside. But Eddie finds himself entangled in something far more hazardous than he bargained for when his brother Freddy (Daniel Ings) gets too close to a criminal organization.
An allure for safety permeates every Guy Ritchie mobster movie. There is the motley crew of consistently stupid crooks, each with their unique gimmick. A reward exists that can only be obtained through extremely shady deals. There’s been some clever editing. There is a music that is unstoppable. This filmmaker is content to leave things alone and head home after hitting all the right notes.
The Gentlemen, a small-screen spin-off of Ritchie’s 2019 film of the same name, has, of course, changed significantly. It now operates within the much broader parameters of an eight-part miniseries, with episodes ranging in duration from forty minutes to just over an hour. The first two episodes of the program are directed by the director, who also co-wrote the whole season with Matthew Read. This is the filmmaker’s first experimentation with serialized narrative. Ritchie, meanwhile, merely remixes his big songs—more gangsters, more heists, endlessly more dialogue—despite having reams of playtime at his disposal.
The show’s willingness to stick to a well-tested formula is at times its undoing.
Theo James portrays Eddie, the protagonist, as a dapper straight arrow who is displeased with his increasingly murky day-to-day work. As soon as he signed over the family’s enormous estate and took on the role of babysitter for his haughty, drug-addled brother, he was given a grand tour of the marijuana empire hidden beneath the mansion. Run by Kaya Scodelario’s crime boss Susie for years, the operation is now under danger. Despite having a minor part, Scodelario steals the show. She moves with grace and patience through Susie’s heavy rants, which are full of technical business jargon and veiled threats. She is like a calm presence in a sea of arses.
Sometimes the show’s demise comes from its willingness to adhere to a tried-and-true format. Without the constraints of a feature picture, Ritchie’s customary fast pace falters, and the narrative is too dragged out with exposition (sometimes, hand-written crib notes that summarize the action unfolding off screen scroll across the screen—a needless and annoying touch). The show’s sleek set pieces, which include a neon-tinged study of marijuana growing and the quick handling of staggering sums of money to the music of a very Liverpudlian rap song, rescue it for a little while. The Gentlemen might not have been on the verge of disengaging with fewer episodes. Rather, it barely makes it by playing Ritchie’s biggest songs.
This incredibly gorgeous but frequently dizzying spin-off, which stars Kaya Scodelario as the lead, is evidence why Ritchie should stick to shorter runtimes wherever possible.
