THE GENTLEMEN
THE GENTLEMEN I Guy Ritchie’s return to sharp suits, smart mouths and shooters...
Guy Ritchie goes back to his gangster roots for a star-studded caper.
This is a return to my roots,” says Guy Ritchie of The Gentlemen, a crime caper bursting with banter and bickering, blackmail and bribery. After a run of studio behemoths – two Sherlock movies, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword and Aladdin – Ritchie’s 11th feature revisits the colourful territory of his breakout hits Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. “It’s on that frequency, but 20 years later,” he continues. “So everyone evolves – well, hopefully evolves.”
The Gentlemen is a movie about a drug kingpin, but it might not be the movie you’re expecting, as Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), an expat in London, looks to cash in his highly profitable marijuana business. The decision is chum in the water for a bunch of swirling sharks played by Colin Farrell, Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Eddie Marsan, Jeremy Strong, Henry Golding and, sporting a sharp beard, tinted spectacles and a cockney accent, one Hugh Grant.
“It’s a good cast but we just asked people, and they were around,” shrugs Ritchie modestly. “Everyone wanted to do it, so I knew that everyone was into it. I didn’t have to explain things to them. They got the joke.” And Grant? The trailer makes it clear he’s having a ball playing against type… “I think Hugh Grant is a better actor than Hugh Grant thinks he is. Now, he hasn’t said that to me, but I am immensely confident of his ability, his intelligence, and the roles which he takes. Hugh has his spin on things, and it’s a sophisticated spin. I just like watching him, and I like working with him, and I wish he’d work more.”
Grant may have worked sparsely in the last couple of decades, but he’s lived life – as have McConaughey and Ritchie. So while The Gentlemen promises plenty of dynamic entertainment, it’s this life experience that differentiates it from Lock, Stock and Snatch.
“It’s an interesting thing that happens with villains as they age, it’s what happens to everyone,” Ritchie smiles. “You become old, you become more practical, and you care about where your kids go to school, and where you get a good cappuccino, not a poor one. You’re drawn into the gravity of a prosaic, gentrified life, which has all sorts of blessings that ultimately become irresistible. So if you start off as a hardcore villain, and if you’re successful as a hardcore villain, in the end you just become rather middleclass. Because people like the finer things in life.” Ritchie chuckles. “The Sopranos sort of stumbled across that. You end up getting a house in the suburbs, and you want to talk to your neighbours. All that tough gangster-y stuff is not practical, you know?”
ETA 1 JAnuAry / ThE GEnTlEmEn opEns nExT yEAr.