The Gentlemen - Another Well Crafted Movie from Guy Ritchie with his Usual Unique Story Telling Style

Since few weeks ago, this movie had been playing in Indonesian theaters but somehow I either could not find the time or the excitement to really go to the cinema to see it. Until today when I noticed it is still playing in few studios. As my wife and I did not have anything planned, we went straight to Grand Indonesia and saw it in the first available show. OK I'll go straight to the movie now.

Brief Story Line

An American born mariyuana kingpin named Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey - Sing, The Dark Tower etc) wanted to sell his business and retire peacefully with his wife Rosalind (Michelle Dockery - Non-stop, Downton Abbey TV series etc). He managed to find a willing buyer in the form of another American businessman Matthew (Jeremy Strong - Molly's Game, Succession TV series etc).

However, when news about Mickey retiring became known, the second in command of Chinese gangster called Dry Eye (Henry Golding - Last Christmas, Crazy Rich Asians etc) also wanted to get his hands on the business. Things got complicated when a Private Investigator named Fletcher (Hugh Grant - Paddington 2, Music & Lyrics etc) tried to blackmail Mickey's trusted man Raymond (Charlie Hunnam - King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, The Lost City of Z etc). Not to mention a team of fighters under Coach (Colin Farrell - Dumbo live version, Phone Booth etc) somehow got entangled with Mickey's business.

So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this intelligently done combination of dark comedy, action and mystery with some twists.

End of Brief Story Line

I had seen several of Guy Ritchie's directed movies like Sherlock Holmes and its sequel, Snatch and his latter works like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., so I believe I am already familiar with his style. Now this movie had his trademark all over from the start, with some unique story telling from the point of view of 1 person (I will let you see it to know who). Now this story telling was indeed unique but honestly speaking, I felt it was a bit too slow and very detail at first (my wife was truly bored during the early part of the movie, while I prefer to focus on what or how the mystery would unfold). 

However, once we became more familiar with the characters and the plot started to take shape, the movie felt way more exciting. Even my wife also started to take more attention to it (I think it was after half of the film's duration which had 113 minutes including closing credit which showed brief fun music video but nothing else). And the climax was really worth the wait. 

This movie's main attraction was definitely the thrill of finding out what the plan was all along and how it would end. Few surprising twists were also a nice addition in this film, plus some comedic moments. I really love Hugh Grant's performance in here as the private investigator with lots of humorous remarks. The rest of the cast did their jobs remarkably as well. It certainly was interesting to see some British well known actors and actress in one movie. 

I got to hand it to Ritchie as I think he is a truly intelligent movie maker (aside from directing, he also wrote and produce this movie). This time I agree with critics view that Ritchie was back at his best. Even if the early part could have been done in a quicker way to my personal opinion, I still admit that the ending was quite well crafted. It might not have been totally mind blowing but nevertheless it was pretty entertaining.

So if you are in the mood for some unique story telling typical Guy Ritchie and if you don't mind some rather detailed & possibly a bit slow first half but having a great full of surprises and really interesting climax ending, then this should be worthwhile to see. However if you prefer a fast paced story with full action, then this would not be to your liking. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars