IT'S A GUY THING (THE GENTLEMEN)

  

If someone told you Guy Ritchie had been hired to do a $20 million version of 'Minder,' you wouldn't be surprised.

It'd probably star Hugh Grant as Arthur Daley and Leonardo DiCaprio as Terry and involve some dodgy cannabis deal they have unwittingly stumbled into that finds them on the wrong end of several crime gangs.

There would be lots of slow mo and freeze frames, bloody gunfights and a liberal sprinkling of the c word (the really rude one) throughout.

That, after all, is the Guy Ritchie formula and it is rather depressingly on display in spades in 'The Gentlemen'.

Matthew McConaughey is the Hollywood star of choice in Ritchie's latest and he struts across the screen looking like a Carnaby Street clothes horse as Mickey Pearson.

His character is an American cannabis baron who went to Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, courted the establishment and built a drugs empire.

But this being a Guy Ritchie movie, other people want a piece of the action.

Jeremy Strong's US billionaire Matthew Berger and his "Mossad crabs" henchmen are interested.

Then there's Henry Golding's rising Chinese gangster Dry Eye.

But the cat is really thrown among the pigeons when Mickey's cannabis factory on a country estate is raided by a group of streetwise yoofs who video themselves beating up his gang of old codgers and post it up on social media.

Mickey and his right hand man, Charlie Hunnam's Raymond Smith are desperate to find out who the gang is and immediately begin to work out all the angles.

The yoofs have connections to Colin Farrell's boxing gym owner, The Coach who is reluctant to get drawn into any messy, underworld activity.

And to further complicate matters, Eddie Marsan's egotistical tabloid newspaper editor Big Dave is determined to destroy Mickey after he refused his handshake at a do.

Hugh Grant's weasely gay private investigator Fletcher is also knocking about, playing all sides as he touts a screenplay based on the events that unfold in Ritchie's movie.

And cor blimey, Guv'nor, doesn't it all go Pete Tong when Mickey's trouble and strife, Michelle Dockery's Rosalind gets drawn into the mounting violence?

What you get from 'The Gentlemen' is the same old glossy, Mockney, laddish guff that Ritchie has been pedalling since 1998's 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'.

McConaughey pouts and preens his way through the proceedings with all the menace of Matt Hancock.

Hunnam once again tries and fails to pass himself off as Tom Hardy's understudy.

Golding looks out of his depth as a Chinese underworld villain.

Strong, who is so good in HBO's series 'Succession,' seems to sleepwalk his way through proceedings as if he is channeling the 'Wallace and Gromit' penguin.

Even worse, he recites his dialogue as if he is reading instructions about how to assemble an IKEA bookcase. 

At least Grant seems to be having a ball playing a spineless PI with a Cockney accent, although Farrell is much better value as a Dubliner who really doesn't want to be arsed with all the violence.

As far as Ritchie movies go, 'The Gentlemen' is one of the better ones.

Although, that is hardly a recommendation in a career that had seen him become the late 20th Century, early 21st Century version of Michael Winner.

The film looks like a GQ shoot, thanks to Alan Stewart's cinematography and Michael Wilkinson's handsome costume design.

But it is also depressingly misogynistic - Ritchie dreams up a garage that employs "babe" mechanics that could be straight out of an Austin Powers movie.

But there is also a frankly shameful attempted rape scene.

The attitude to non Anglo Saxon ethnic groups is also troubling - the Chinese and Jewish characters are all portrayed as shifty. 

Afro Carribbean characters are reduced to being streetwise yoofs.

The portrayal of Grant's character definitely veers into the homophobic.

Ritchie's Tarantino obsession unfortunately shows no sign of abating - even though aping 'Pulp Fiction' in other movies became tired 20 years ago.

And that's the thing.

'The Gentlemen' is devoid of originality and is an unwelcome throwback to the day when he was idolised by Loaded, Nuts and other lad mags.

Watching it is a bit like watching Liam Gallagher these days, belting out pale imitations of Oasis hits.

Like Gallagher's recent chart success, there's clearly an audience out there willing to swallow this guff.

A $115 million pre-Covid box office take will no doubt encourage more of this bollocks.

Eaten meat, though, is soon forgotten and it's hard to imagine anyone saying next year what a great movie 'The Gentlemen' was.

The Mockney Tarantino pantomime will simply roll on.

Just pray he doesn't get his hands on 'Minder'.

('The Gentlemen' opened in UK and Irish cinemas on January 1, 2020 and was made available on DVD and streaming on April 27, 2020)