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The Gentlemen (2019 film)

The Gentlemen is a 2019 action comedy film, directed and produced by Guy Ritchie, co-written with Marn Davies and Ivan Atkinson. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan, Colin Farrell, and Hugh Grant, the film follows an American drug lord in England who is looking to sell his business, setting off a chain of blackmail and schemes to undermine him.

Plot
Born into poverty in the U.S., Michael "Mickey" Pearson won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he began selling marijuana before dropping out and becoming a narcotics baron, building a criminal empire in blood and growing cannabis in labs under the estates of aristocratic landlords who need cash for the upkeep of their stately homes. One such landlord is Lord Pressfield, a duke whose daughter Laura grows up to be a heroin-addicted pop star living in a council estate with other addicts. Now middle-aged, Pearson plans to sell his empire and retire peacefully with his wife, Rosalind. Pearson's chosen candidate is American billionaire and cannabis baron Matthew Berger, and his price is £400 million. After showing Berger one of the labs, Pearson is approached by up-and-coming Chinese gangster Dry Eye who offers and fails to buy out Pearson's business. The aforementioned lab is raided by amateur MMA fighters and aspiring YouTubers "The Toddlers", who overpower the guards, steal marijuana, and upload a rap video of their caper online. The Toddlers' horrified trainer "Coach" orders them to delete the video. Seeking to expose Pearson, Daily Print tabloid editor Big Dave hires private detective Fletcher to investigate Pearson's links to Lord Pressfield. At the request of Pressfield, Pearson sends his right-hand man, Raymond, to bring Laura home. In a brawl with her flatmates, one of Raymond's men accidentally kills Aslan, a young Russian. Laura is returned to her parents but shortly after relapses and dies of an overdose. Coach visits Raymond, apologizes for The Toddlers' actions, and offers his services in compensation. Coach discovers that The Toddlers learned about Pearson's lab location via Dry Eye. Dry Eye is actually in league with Berger, who seeks disrupting Pearson's business to reduce the price; Dry Eye, meanwhile, covets Pearson's empire for himself. Dry Eye tries to kidnap Rosalind, who kills his men before running out of bullets; Pearson intervenes, killing Dry Eye as he is about to rape her. That night, Fletcher attempts to blackmail Pearson's operation, offering Raymond everything he has discovered (typed up as a screenplay entitled Bush) for £20 million. Coach orders The Toddlers to capture Big Dave; they drug him and film him having sex with a pig, threatening to post it online unless he drops his investigation. Pearson and Berger meet to finalize the deal, and Berger drops his offer to £130 million on account of the recent disruptions. Pearson reneges on the sale entirely in light of Berger's sabotage, and forces him into a refrigerator where he will freeze to death unless he transfers £270 million as compensation for the cost of restoring order. Because Rosalind was assaulted, Pearson also demands "a pound of flesh" from Berger's own body, anywhere Berger chooses, as recompense for the indiscretion. Fletcher approaches Raymond again for his payment, but Raymond reveals he has been tailing Fletcher all along and has had the Toddlers retrieve Fletcher's stashes of evidence, nullifying Fletcher's blackmail threat. Fletcher admits he also sold the info to Aslan's father, a Russian oligarch and former KGB agent who is keen to avenge his son's death and has sent assassins to kill both Pearson and Raymond. Coach kills the two sent for Raymond. Pearson is kidnapped by two other Russians, but they are ambushed by The Toddlers who riddle the car with bullets, killing the Russians and allowing Pearson to escape. The Pearsons return to their cannabis empire and celebrate together. Fletcher calls a cab to escape but finds he is a prisoner, leaving the ending to the imagination. ==Cast==
Production
Development and casting It was announced in May 2018 that Guy Ritchie would write and direct Toff Guys, a film that would be in the same spirit as his earlier Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. The project was unveiled at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival by CAA Media Finance and Rocket Science where Miramax acquired the distribution rights for more than $30 million and joined the film as a co-financier. Filming was expected to begin in October. In October, Matthew McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale, Henry Golding and Hugh Grant were cast, with Jeremy Strong, Jason Wong and Colin Farrell joining in November. Later, Michelle Dockery signed on, replacing Beckinsale in her role. In December 2018, Lyne Renée was added as well. Filming Principal photography began in November 2018. Filming locations included West London Film Studios, Longcross Studios, The Princess Victoria pub in Shepherd's Bush and Brompton Cemetery. ==Release==
Release
In February 2019, STX Entertainment acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film, retitled Bush, from Miramax for $7 million. The film would be retitled once again to The Gentlemen, premiering as a VIP special screening at Curzon Mayfair on 3 December 2019. It was theatrically released in the UK on 1 January 2020, and in the US on 24 January 2020. The studio spent around $25 million on promoting the film. It was previously set for a home media release on 7 April, but was moved up due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and Ultra HD Blu-ray on 21 April 2020, by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. ==Reception==
Reception
Box office The Gentlemen grossed $15.9 million in the United Kingdom, $36.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $62.8 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $115.2 million. In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside The Turning, and was projected to gross around $10 million from 2,100 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $3.1 million on its first day, including $725,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $10.6 million, finishing fourth at the box office. It then made $6 million in its second weekend, finishing fifth. In its third and fourth weekends the film made a respective $4.2 million and $2.7 million. Critical response On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads, "It may not win writer-director Guy Ritchie many new converts, but for those already attuned to the filmmaker's brash wavelength, The Gentlemen stands tall." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported an average 3.5 out of 5 stars, with 48% of people saying they would definitely recommend it. Accolades Lawsuit Three years after the film's release, Ritchie was sued by the actor Mickey De Hara (who had played Turbo in Ritchie's prior film RocknRolla) for copying the "cast of characters, their characterisation and 'unique aspects of the plot'" from a screenplay De Hara had offered Ritchie as a sequel to RocknRolla. De Hara claimed that when he had tried to address the issue out of court, Ritchie responded, "Mickey, I and my people have tried to contact you for some years now. There was no response. I am happy for us to sit down and have a chat." De Hara claimed that the most blatant instance of copying was a scene involving the character Coach and "The Toddlers" gang he leads, which was an almost exact match to a scene from De Hara's screenplay with a character Coach leading a group of thugs nicknamed "The Baby Squad." Ritchie filed his defence to the London High Court denying the allegations in August 2023. Ritchie confirmed that discussions took place regarding a potential RocknRolla sequel or trilogy and that he used some aspects of the screenplay for The Gentlemen; however, he claimed the contributions of De Hara were well below both the Writers Guild of America and Writers Guild of Great Britain thresholds to receive credit. ==Netflix series==
Netflix series
In October 2020, Miramax Television started development on a spin-off television series of the film, with Ritchie overseeing the project. In November 2022, the series was officially greenlit by Netflix. The Gentlemen stars Theo James, alongside Vinnie Jones, Kaya Scodelario, Giancarlo Esposito, Daniel Ings, Joely Richardson, Peter Serafinowicz, Chanel Cresswell and Max Beesley. ==References==
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