The Gentlemen

The Gentlemen is the perfect example of improving an already perfectly good movie by expanding on it to tell a new, and even better, story. The Netflix series has all the things that fans of Ritchie could want but also feels accessible to those who aren’t quite familiar with the auteur. It’s bloody, foul-mouthed, fast-paced, and it doesn’t disappoint.

Some of the storytelling turns are either too convenient or too ridiculous. But that’s the beauty, people: Not everything needs to be prestige TV or a smart drama to get it right. Sometimes, it can just be pure distraction, and The Gentlemen is as successful a bit of escapism as they come.

The standout performances, though, by some measure, are from Ings and James. Yes, you may at times wish it would stop meandering and dial down the slapstick, and, indeed, that it was two episodes shorter. But the bottom line is that it is entertaining and it will make you laugh.

Like most of Guy Ritchie’s material when he’s in caper and kooky criminals mode, The Gentlemen is a romp. Chippy, funny, stylish, cartoonishly violent, touched with mild absurdity.

In the moment of viewing, it overrides my instinct to want to criticize the puffery of it all, the flimsy foundation of pure adrenaline, the absence of the artistic impulse to say anything actually meaningful. I just opened a bottle of wine, hit play, and before I knew it, five immensely entertaining episodes had passed.

The show does feel a bit bloated at times, self-indulgent in trademark Ritchie fashion. But the fact that the series comes across as a collection of short stories makes it far more palatable, and fun.

For all those who enjoyed the film, even loved it, there were others who found it too violent, too glib, too high on its own supply. If that's you, then you'll want to stay away from this series. It's Guy Ritchie going full Guy Ritchie, perhaps the most Guy Ritchie he's ever gone before. If that sounds like a bit of you, though, then strap in - it's going to be a truly wild ride.

Enjoyable, riproarious and surprisingly elegant, “The Gentlemen” is also more wealth-aganda.

It’s cheeky, irresistible and undemanding from start to finish. Hopefully, there will be a Season 2.

After the first two episodes, the show dips a bit, but not enough to mind. It’s only in the last episode that “The Gentlemen” becomes clumsy. But by then, it’s built up enough goodwill that it doesn’t much matter.

There are times when “The Gentlemen” wanders off into the woods and we get a little impatient waiting for the gears to grind again, but thanks in large part to the sharp writing and the stellar performances from Theo James and Kaya Scodelario and the entire ensemble, this is a worthy addition to the Guy Ritchie library of stylish and violent crime thrillers.

Filled with style, panache, laughs, and a solid cast putting in the effort, it’s largely one of Ritchie’s best comedic efforts in a while and one that wryly suggests barons and burglars are often just different sides of the same coin, inherited, appropriated or otherwise.

The cast, led by the frenemy-flirtatious Theo James and Kaya Scodelario, is game. And hey, there’s only a little racism this time around. .... Surprisingly entertaining and pleasantly forgettable series.

Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen is slick, stylish, and very well cast – and it has just enough momentum to carry it through to a lukewarm but effective finale.

For all its slickness and charm, "The Gentlemen" never quite justifies its existence as an expanded vision of Ritchie's world. It's a story that feels stretched instead of grown, scraped out across too many hours to give audiences an experience that is, at best, watchable, and at worst, frustrating.

Altogether, The Gentlemen adds up to an awfully long time to spend in Ritchie’s particular bag of tricks and they begin to feel both same-y and smug. Because we know what to expect, his in-your-face approach actually has the curious effect of being fairly tame.

The Ritchie flourishes are irritating – especially on-screen text cutely translating the drugs speak, so when a character offers “£4m sweetened with a bar’s worth of White Widow super cheese”, up pops the explainer that this refers to a million pounds’ worth of “rocket-fuelled marijuana”. But if you can get past this, The Gentleman is a fun caper.

It’s a slightly underpowered Ritchie film on TV. If you like his films, you should watch it. If you don’t, there is loads of other stuff instead.

Kaya Scodelario is the kingpin in this hyper-stylish though often wheel-spinning spin-off, which serves as proof that Ritchie should stick to shorter runtimes where he can.

The story behind “The Gentlemen” might be more interesting than the show, with director Guy Ritchie rebooting his 2020 movie as an eight-episode Netflix series. Yet despite the dashing presence of Theo James as the unexpected heir to a cannabis empire, the net result blows by briskly enough but yields relatively few highs.

Sure, there’s effort and style in the new-and-unimproved “Gentlemen,” but it’s still a copy of a copy of a copy: Ritchie imitated himself in the movie, and now he’s recreating that imitation. While distracting enough, there’s less tension here than concession; less inner battle than business opportunity.

A major miscalculation that never justifies its derivative existence, it suggests that the British auteur needs to finally let go of the past.

The episodic nature of the show sometimes works in its favor because it allows those kind of quick, Ritchie-esque creative choices, but the overall season-long narrative sags and drags in a way that makes it difficult to care about what happens to anyone involved.

If you were wondering how an eight-hour season could possibly keep up the zippy energy of Ritchie’s two-hour crime capers, The Gentlemen suggests maybe it can’t. While the series goes through the motions, its heart doesn’t fully seem to be in them.

It feels sluggish. It’s also hampered by clunky stereotyping (underworld boxing, travelling communities, fascist toffs et al) and such all-engulfing padding, it suggests Ritchie was overwhelmed by the amount of screen time he had to fill.