THE GENTLEMEN

THE GENTLEMEN begins as a man named Fletcher arrives at Ray’s house uninvited and begins to pitch him a screenplay. Fletcher is a private detective in England who makes it his mission to uncover dirt on the wealthy and threatens to expose it unless he’s properly paid. Ray is the right-hand man to Mickey Pearson, the marijuana lord in all of England. He has spent years developing this dynasty in which he grows and sells this illegal drug, taking the farms underground so they’ll never be detected by the law or anyone else. However, Mickey’s grown older and now tired of this business and wants to sell it off to someone with more motivation to keep it going. His wife, Rosalind, runs a female auto shop. Although she has always supported him in his endeavors, she also supports his decision to leave and spend more time with her.

Mickey has set his price quite high, but he already has a few bidders. One of those people interested is a man named Matthew, a well-to-do businessman from Oklahoma, eager to cash in on this empire. Mickey takes the time to show him one of his underground marijuana farms, as well as a few of his above ground connections that distribute for him. Although intrigued, he’s not so keen on the price and needs some time to get it all together.

Out of the blue, and never been done before, that exact farm that was shown to Matthew now has a van of young men breaking into it. They all wear brightly colored plaid track suits and ski masks to cover their faces, although they also carry with them cameras and phones to record what they do. As they enter into the underground marijuana bunker, they are greeted by multiple guards put there to protect the product. However, the guards aren’t expecting that these young men are highly trained fighters, and the young men easily take them out one by one.

Ray enters into a room where he finds Mickey and his wife Rosalind. After excusing his intrusion, he shows Mickey a video that he found online that shows these young men easily overpowering Mickey’s men, and then stealing loads of product. Mickey snaps into crisis mode, and they begin working to figure out how this could have happened.

As Fletcher tells this whole story to Ray, because everything that happened is part of his screenplay. Fletcher fancies himself a clever man and continues with what comes next.

Now, a few new characters in this story. Coach, the man who trains all these young hoodlums who make videos of themselves committing crimes, finds out that their latest endeavor has involved the marijuana lord, Mickey Pearson. Coach finds his way to Ray. Coach admits to Ray that it was his students who committed this crime, and so he now offers his services in order to repay the debt. Coach has already taken it upon himself to capture the man who gave the information of the farm’s location to his boys, and takes Ray to his car trunk, where he has him held. This man is a bodyguard to a man who goes by the name of Dry Eye, and works with the local heroin drug lord making and distributing this heinous substance. But before they can get any information out of him, he throws himself over a bridge to escape their grasp, only to find himself directly underneath a fast moving train.

Mickey and Ray make a visit to his boss, Lord George, where they have preemptively has his tea poisoned. Threatening him with his life and his thriving business, Lord George knows that he dares not ever mess with Mickey’s dynasty again.

Back at Ray’s house, Fletcher is revealing some new information to Ray, showing him photos and video evidence of the mutiny that was happening behind their backs. While Ray and some others were making a rescue of a young girl who belonged to a wealthy family, there was one casualty while dealing with a few of the heroin addicts with whom she mixed herself up. This young man was the son of an ex-KGB member, someone not to be crossed. Mickey, Ray and his other allies have a huge mess to clean up, and still need to figure out who it was that started this chaos. Mickey takes it upon himself to restore order to his empire and punish those who have wronged him.

This movie follows suit to the Guy Ritchie style of filmmaking, including gangsters, intrigue, and many unexpected twists and turns. Although it can be intense, there is also quite a bit of comedic relief to ease the audience through the story. With an all-star cast like this one, it’s hard to have it go wrong. However, there is an extremely high amount of questionable content, including crass language and excessive blood, violence and gore. The worldview is primarily humanist with man being the governing force that creates the rules and then enforces them. Because of the little redeeming qualities, Movieguide advises to approach this movie with extreme caution.