The Gentlemen review Spoilers

“If you wish to be the king of the jungle, it's not enough to act like a king. you must be the king. There can be no doubt. Because doubt causes chaos and one's own demise.” Narrated by Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) who sits in a bar, enjoying a pint and about to eat a pickled egg when a hitman appears behind him. With a bang, blood splashes on the perfect pickled egg. It’s all ruined. At the time, we don't know if Mickey is dead or not. But you know for sure that he’s not gonna eat that pickled egg.

This is the opening scene of Guy Ritchie’s “The Gentlemen”. After a host of studio efforts, Ritchie finally returned to his usual London gangster stories with The Gentlemen. Guy Ritchie wrote the film about 10 years ago, it looks like he’s been shooting all the big studio films to make this movie happen.

A lot of movies’ first scene tells the whole story. It’s a technique often used by filmmakers. And I wonder if this film does the same. A self-righteous gangster boss running on karma. The suspense also gives the audience a good reason to watch the movie. You wonder how this poor man who acts like a king and also thinks of himself as a king gets himself killed. And until most of the film is watched, you find out, he’s not killed. It’s the hitman’s blood on the pickled egg.

The movie follows Mikey， an American who builds an incredibly successful marijuana empire across the pond in London. Mikey worked his way up, not afraid of using violence, becoming the most powerful and influential person in the criminal in London. Now middle-aged and comfortably middle-class, he hopes to sell his business to the highest bidder so that he can retire in peace with his wife Rosalynn.

Jewish-American billionaire Matthew Berger seems interested in buying Pearson's Marijuana business for four hundred million pounds. Sterling to show how majestic and profitable his Marijuana business is, Pearson takes Matthew on a tour to one of his secret Marijuana farms which is an underground greenhouse below a deserted container. And that's when everything begins to fall apart.

We learn Mickey’s plans and their inevitable unraveling through a screenplay written by sleazy private investigator and aspiring screenwriter Fletcher (Hugh Grant). The screenplay is, of course, blackmail, with which Fletcher hopes to exploit Mickey.

After the tour, Mickey’s farm got robbed. Everyone wants a slice from him. He almost gets killed by some Russian mobs, twice. His wife almost gets raped by “dry eye”, a Chinese gangster boss. But at last, all the people who want to take advantage paid a price. “Dry Eye” gets killed. Big Dave, who is an editor who aspires to disclose Mikey’s Marijuana business, is shot on a video while having intercourse with a pig. Matthew pays a lot of money without getting any business in return, he also loses a pound of meat, cut off by one of Pearson’s hand men.

Just as he said in the opening scene. Mickey sees the world as the jungle and himself as the lion king. “If you wish to be The King of the jungle, it's not enough to act like a king. You must be The King. And there can be no doubt. Because doubt causes chaos and one's own demise.” Narrated by Mikey again at the end of the film. All his opponents have been eliminated.

But then again, the whole movie is about different interest groups, plotting and scheming with each other for their own different interests, but that's it. Like all of Guy Ritchie's movies, it's both funny and ridiculous, and a big part of the narration happens by coincidence. Somebody gets the last laugh, somebody dies and somebody's a clown, and Someone becomes king, but that's it, no one changes, and there is no more meaning. But why would you expect more from Guy Richie’s film other than his extraordinary story-telling techniques? He never intends to give the audience a lesson or enlightenment. “The Gentlemen,” gives you exactly what you might expect from a Guy Ritchie movie that hasn’t been constrained by big Hollywood studios. It’s entertaining enough but feels like an homage to the plots and characters you’d find in his earlier works. The good thing is that those kinds of films are so fun, you don’t mind getting a lesser version of it. “The gentlemen” is talky and twisty, aggressive and hilarious, and most importantly, cool. And that’s enough.