Guy Ritchie made his name in the 1990s with films set in cartoonish criminal underworlds; but he is himself of posh stock, and owns a shooting estate in Wiltshire. In his Netflix series “The Gentlemen”, he mixes his fantasy vision with his personal history, said Nick Hilton in The Independent.
Ludicrously entertaining
The show stars Theo James as Eddie, aka the 13th Duke of Halstead, who inherited the family seat at the start of series one – and discovered that it was playing host to a cannabis factory run by a crime family (headed by geezer-in-chief Ray Winstone).
Eddie, who recently left the Army and is as hard as nails, gets in on the action and in series two, he extends his criminal empire and forms a transactional alliance with a shady fellow aristocrat (Hugh Bonneville).
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Unfolding over eight episodes, this brash gangster romp is ludicrous enough to be entertaining in its own way; but the dialogue and plotting really are unforgivably bad.
Baroque deaths and showdowns
A “caper composed primarily of fists, shouting and men made of fists shouting ‘faaackin’ ’ell’ in tweed” sounds like a composite of everything Ritchie has ever made, said Sarah Dempster in The Guardian. It is fun, but it lacks the energy that fizzed through his early work.
You feel that Ritchie wants to say something meaningful about Eddie’s moral descent, said Ben Dowell in The Times; but the show is far too in love with carnage and wisecracks to hold on to anything serious. Besides, you don’t come to this unsophisticated series for that. You come for “chases, showdowns and more baroque deaths than you can shake a shooting stick at”.
