Guy Ritchie is back to his old stomping ground with The Gentleman, a crime comedy that screams “from the director of Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” There’s gunplay, banter, and exceptional style on display in the new trailer for The Gentleman. It has class and profanity to spare from the look of it.
The Trailer
The last time Ritchie directed a crime pic was 2008’s RocknRolla, an overlooked movie with a charismatic cast and soundtrack. Since then, the filmmaker has been directing big-budget adventure movies, including Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword, and Alladin. He’s big time now.
Those pieces of spectacle typically have his wit and giddy style, with the exception of Aladdin, but The Gentleman looks like Ritchie off the chain with an R-rating and a stellar cast. The movie stars the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Colin Farrell, and Hugh Grant. Everyone looks like scene-stealers.
A Return to Roots
Ritchie knows he’s kicking it old-school with The Gentleman, the kind of movie he would’ve made when he first burst on the scene as a filmmaker. Previously, he’s called the crime movie a return to his roots. The ensemble crime pic has already been released in territories overseas and has earned the strongest reviews of Ritchie’s career since Sherlock Holmes.
As Ritchie told HeyUGuys, he’s back in the crime world he enjoys and is comfortable in:
“I enjoy making movies in this world. It’s a script I wrote some years ago, but it sat there. Then there a moment where I could make manifest this particular expression. It’s a world I’m interested in…. You want to express something you’re interested in, and this just happens to be what I’m interested in.”
‘The Gentleman’ TV Show
Originally, Ritchie didn’t conceive of The Gentleman as a movie but a TV series, which he’s yet to make as a director. When he was pitching the show around someone said they’d make the story as a movie, which was an offer Ritchie couldn’t refuse.
With Ritchie’s talent for writing ensembles, though, it’s easy to imagine one of Ritchie’s crime worlds translating beautifully to television, where he’d have all the time in the world for clever characters, dope song choices, and criminal hijinks.
The Evolution of Guy Ritchie
Even though Ritchie is now most famous for crime pictures and Hollywood blockbusters, he’s managed to keep things varied and, more often than not, exciting. He brought his voice to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in full force to beautiful results.
Unfortunately, the movie didn’t connect with audiences, but it was a reminder when Ritchie is at the top of his game, the results are damn fine entertainment. He’s a showman with impeccable style. At his best, Ritchie knows to shoot, cut, and move fast without exhausting an audience or running a story into the ground. There’s quickness to his characters and movies. The last time Ritchie was firing on all cylinders was his stylish ‘60s spy movie, but he looks back in strong form with The Gentleman.
Synopsis
From writer/director Guy Ritchie comes The Gentlemen, a star-studded sophisticated action comedy. The Gentlemen follows American expat Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) who built a highly profitable marijuana empire in London. When word gets out that he’s looking to cash out of the business forever it triggers plots, schemes, bribery and blackmail in an attempt to steal his domain out from under him.
The Gentleman opens in theaters on January 24, 2018.
