The Gentlemen: the explosive return of Guy Ritchie! (Critical)

The director of Scams, Crimes and Botany and Snatch returns to the energetic and furious origins of his cinema.

When the spin-off series from the film by Guy Ritchie The Gentlemen a hit on Netflix (to the point thata season 2 has already been ordered), the original from early 2020 returns this Sunday unencrypted on television, on W9. Here is the review of First.

After more than ten years of wandering, except for the solid diptych Sherlock Holmes, Guy Ritchie returns to his first love: the choral and furious gangster film. A return that we no longer expected.

It's been a long time since we last heard from him directly from the underbelly of London where petty crime with a cockney accent is rife. These treacherous, grotesque but endearing schemers, striving to screw up their business plan for a few tickets whose color they will never see. The last time was in 2008 for RockNRolla, between a sweaty club and an impeccable golf course. It was about a stolen painting, a missing rockstar, greedy wankers and indestructible Russian mobsters. Like everyday life. Then nothing. Yes: a spy pantsuit, a remix of the myth of the Round Table and Aladdin's cave.

A page had been turned. Like a goodbye. But luckily, Ritchie is back in business. And it's serious. Taciturn henchman, crooked journalist, diabolical lovers, mafioso (Chinese this time), highly trained thugs and lush forest of marijuana… All of this had to be on the table for Guy Ritchie to prove that he is not came back to sneer. The director has a title to recover. What could be better than going back to basics and rediscovering the energy of the beginnings?

ALL IN TWEED DRESSED
The Gentlemen is part of the lineage ofScams, crimes and botany, Snatch And RockNRolla. His informal trilogy celebrating criminal conspiracy while elevating idiocy to the rank of art. There has always been a gap in Ritchie: the figure of the gangster is never fantasized and omnipotent. Under the leadership of the trendy filmmaker, the margoulins look like little scoundrels out of a Cheech & Chong with fish & chips sauce. Resourceful people, more or less idiots, failed versions of Michael Caine in The Law of the Middle. Like Matthew McConaughey, who thanks to The Gentlemen reiterates a new artistic resurrection. The Texan expatriate finds a more English role here than a native Englishman. As a drug lord, dressed all in tweed, he establishes himself as the übergangster according to Saint Ritchie. An aging lion who has fallen prey to bigger predators wanting to dethrone him, the scammed scammer who unleashes his vengeance as he takes tea. A purely Ritchian hero that the filmmaker's ex-pygmalion, Jason Statham, would not have disowned if he had not made his place (and his bread and butter) in brutal action films.

HAPPY MESS
The other strength of Guy Ritchie's cinema, alongside his gallery of picturesque and versatile characters, has always been this ability to go in all directions while controlling his slip-ups. The filmmaker's stories are as complex to follow as the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline. Organized chaos, going from cock to donkey, or rather from coke to weapons, zigzagging like the pillar of the pub next door who has had too many pints of Guinness. In The Gentlemen, Guy Ritchie spices things up a little more, adding a meta delirium of a film within the film. A smoky mise en abyme where we learn the unfolding of events at the same time (or sometimes even in advance) as its own protagonists obsessed with their financial interests. The film is created before our eyes. A convoluted technique that the director uses to prove once again that he is the crack at intertwined plots and at the same time make us forget the recent indigestible films that seem to have been ordered from him (with a gun to his head?). By returning to the origins of his cinema, Guy Ritchie rediscovers all his panache of yesteryear, a prosperous and creative era when his detractors saw in him only a British replica of Quentin Tarantino. Let it be said, he is indeed back at his best… And we hope he keeps the crown for a long time.

Crackling trailer for the new Guy Ritchie with Henry Cavill