The Gentlemen Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

3. The Insanely Convoluted Plot

At the most basic level, The Gentlemen's narrative is an incredibly simple one: American weed kingpin Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) wants to get out of the drug game and retire, but of course, his rivals are scheming to ensure that doesn't happen.

We've seen this kind of movie hundreds of times before, and so in the grand tradition of Ritchie's own labyrinthine gangster flicks, the basic premise is fleshed out with ridiculous subplots piled on top of other ridiculous subplots, and more double-crosses than you've had hot dinners.

One gets the sense this is mostly intentional on Ritchie's part: much of the story is told to the audience by Hugh Grant's camp private eye Fletcher, as he tells the story to Mickey's underling Raymond (Charlie Hunnam), while clearly relishing the theatricality of unspooling the various twists and turns.

Except, there's not much in the way of cleverness to how the knotted web of characters is connected, and few of the twists are telegraphed with much depth or intelligence.

After a while, you might just wish Ritchie would start playing straight and get on it with it. Thankfully the movie is more concerned with its charming characters than the specifics of its messy narrative, and so it mostly still works.