by Chris Churilla

*** SPOILERS WITHIN ***

English director Guy Ritchie exploded into the film industry with a pair of comic capers: Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000). With his interesting characters, snappy dialogue and split-second editing, he had many thinking he would be England’s answer to Quentin Tarantino.

But then he strayed into other genres ranging from romantic comedies Swept Away (2002) to action-adventure Sherlock Holmes (2009) to live-action Disney movies Aladdin (2019), leaving many wondering if he had sold out and gone mainstream. With this film, he has returned to his roots, and in my opinion, it showed his time away left him a bit rusty.

SYNOPSIS: A SLIPPERY PATH

The Gentlemen (2020) centers around Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), an American living in England who has cornered the market on marijuana.

But he is smarter than the average thug, and he sees eventual legalization of the drug looming on the horizon. Achieving his position required some violence, and he thinks the literal blood on his hands will make him ill-suited to continue operating.

Therefore, he offers to sell his business to another American, a rich businessman named Matthew (Jeremy Strong). Shortly after they discuss the offer, one of Mickey’s farms comes under attack and a violent Chinese gangster nicknamed Dry Eye (Henry Golding) makes his own offer on Mickey’s business.

Numerous encounters—most of them violent—eventually reveal Eddie and Dry Eye were behind the attack on Mickey’s farm as an effort to reduce his asking price.

Mickey learns of their efforts and takes his own violent countermeasures against them, and once he is done, he decides to stay in the business.

 ANALYSIS

 WAGES OF SIN

Romans 6:23 states, “The wages of sin is death,” and there is a lot of that in this movie. Since the deaths are of criminals, we probably will not lose a lot of sleep over that, but looking further, most of them are set in motion by Eddie’s greed, of his not being content with what he has, of his wanting to get more.

Now one can say for a businessperson, making money is their objective. Obviously, money is a necessary part of our lives. We need it to acquire almost everything in life, even the basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter. But when the need crosses over into excess, we lose sight of what really matters.

Matthew 6 warns us not to store treasures here on earth, where they will rot and thieves will steal--as evidenced by the attack on Mickey’s farm--for where our treasure is that is where our heart will be.

GLAMORIZATION OF EVIL

When someone is baptized, they or their parents promise to reject the “glamor of evil,” to resist the temptation it offers. 

Hollywood has always been fascinated by criminals, and this film is no different. They have been the subject of countless films and will continue.

Why?

Because they appeal to the darkness we all have in our souls. They have money, power, good clothes and expensive cars. They enter a room and all eyes are drawn to them. They are given respect by those who know them.

Is it wrong to want such things?

I think not.

But once someone crosses the line of breaking the law to get them, once they are willing to do whatever it takes to get those things, then it sets them on a slippery slope leading downward.

When a criminal is a protagonist, they are generally portrayed in such a way as to make them likable or at least acceptable, such as an assassin who does not kill women and children The Professional (1994) or a thief who steals from the rich to give to the poor such as in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).

Mickey and his organization are no different. Mickey deals exclusively in marijuana because he believes it is not as damaging as harder drugs such as cocaine, crack or methamphetamine.

Also, when dealing with threats, they always attempt to talk or negotiate their way out of a situation rather than going directly to violence.

For example, one of Mickey’s associates Raymond (Charlie Hunnam) attempts to retrieve an item of importance from a gang of young toughs. When confronted by them, he attempts to buy it back. When his offer is refused and he is physically threatened, he draws a gun. But rather than shooting them, he fires into the air, causing the gang to back down and allowing him to retrieve the item.

While this makes Mickey and his people easier to accept and therefore easier to root for, they are still breaking the law and will have to answer for their crimes, either in this life or the next.

While I thought this was a good film, I also thought Ritchie’s time away from the comic caper genre had allowed some rust to build up; I thought there was one element I felt weakened it considerably. I call this the Ruby Rhod Effect, named after the character Chris Tucker played in Fifth Element (1997).

In that film, Tucker played a high-pitched over-caffeinated TV host whose every scene set my teeth on edge, distracting me from what was an otherwise good science fiction action film.

In this film, the Ruby Rhod was Ritchie’s attempt to bring movies into the film, a sort of metaphysical wink at itself. This is also present in many of Tarantino’s films, though it is more organic and subtle, such as in Inglourious Basterds (2009) where one of the characters is a film critic turned Army intelligence officer, another is a German propaganda film actress, and the film’s climax takes place in a movie theatre.

Here, the Ruby Rhod was given to us by Fletcher (Hugh Grant), a morally flexible private investigator who regales most of the film’s plot in flashback to Raymond.

Specifically, the Ruby Rhod was a screenplay he wrote of the events and he titled Bush, which is apparently British slang for marijuana. It can also be construed as another word for “snatch.”

I do not know what motivated Ritchie to include this; perhaps he was trying to emulate Tarantino, but to me, it was very clumsily constructed and executed. He even included a scene towards the end in which he pitches the screenplay to an executive with Miramax, the company which distributed this film.

I thought this reeked of Ritchie trying to be a bit too clever, and he ended up like Eddie in this film: his reach exceeded his grasp, and he nearly fell flat on his face.

Resources

We’ve created a free downloadable PDF to explore the article deeper. It contains discussion questions about the topic in general terms that will give you a jumping-off point for beginning a conversation.

The second page contains a way to see the topic from a biblical perspective.

And finally, to go deeper into the subject, we have chosen a few curated resources to explore from other authors’ and thinkers’ research or perspectives.

Read. Engage. Enjoy!

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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