The gentlemen (Netflix)
Rating: Five out of five stars
Early release, who wants it? Not Ray Winstone. Playing drug lord Bobby Glass, as The Gentlemen return, he has a blast at HMP Leyhill and has a great time.
Bobby spends all day in his luxurious sauna overlooking the river, when he’s not lounging in his hot tub with an ‘expresso’ and a Cuban cigar. Two prison guards stand guard, ready to get him phones, snacks, or anything else his criminal heart desires.
But I’m worried about him. Bobby is serving a 10-year prison sentence for tax fraud, a sentence that will send him home after just 30 months, under Labor’s push to empty the prisons. Because he is in trouble from the start of the first series, in 2024, he has to hand in his discharge papers.
Where does he find so much luxury on the outside? Perhaps at Badminton House, the stately Cotswold pile that doubles as the ancestral home of former army captain and marijuana king Eddie, 13th Duke of Halstead (Theo James).
Eddie doesn’t want for anything and can certainly afford a gold-plated hot tub. But as the show begins a new series, it has bigger ambitions: to restore the family estates to the glory of centuries gone by.
“All the land down to the coast,” he tells gamekeeper and occasional hitman Geoff (Vinnie Jones), “I want it back.”
Since Badminton is located more than 40 kilometers from the sea, some money will be needed for this. And Eddie has a plan worth a trillion pounds or two.
Early release, who wants it? Ray Winstone (photo) does not. He plays drug lord Bobby Glass as The Gentlemen returns, he gets fucked in HMP Leyhill and has a lovely time
As the show resumes, Eddie (right) has bigger ambitions: to restore the family estates to the glory of centuries gone by
He’s going to corner Europe’s weed supply, manipulate the government into decriminalizing cannabis, and get rich by going legit.
If this doesn’t make sense, director Guy Ritchie helps us understand the backstory (and identify the influx of new characters, including Aisha, played by Maya Jama) with captions and plot notes scribbled across the screen in yellow highlighter.
These include a helpful explanation of ‘kedgeree’, the Duke’s favorite breakfast and (according to the yellow squiggles) a ’19th century Anglo-Indian dish combining rice, fish, egg and curry’. So now you know.
A plump figure in a flannel shirt and tweed waistcoat refuses this treat, declaring, “It’s impossible to outdo the kipper.” This is our first glimpse of Hugh Bonneville, a conservative peer and scion of the aristocracy, right down to the gold signet ring on his little finger.
Lord Grantham is here for the shooting – no, wait a minute, he’s playing a guy called Lord Hawthorne, although it’s hard to tell these two Bonneville characters apart at first, as they both possess an intellect that glows with the faint glow of a five-watt light bulb. I hope Hugh doesn’t get typecast.
Gradually, however, it becomes clear that Lord H is not the decent, moral, upstanding guy you might expect from his cuddly appearance. He has a penchant for rough, young men and 72-hour sex parties. Looking forward to it.
The houseguests also include Cico Maldini, aka Gino the Bambi (Michele Morrone), a rowdy mafioso with a penchant for flamboyant gifts. He presents his girlfriend with a tiger, and doesn’t realize she’s not really a cat person until she calls him “a tabby lion.”
During the filming, Cico is knocked out by a crashing partridge, in a comic moment so broad it almost seems like Carry On Cartel.
The real sound of the show is provided not by Theo James, who subscribes to the Roger Moore school of eyebrow-only acting, but by Kaya Scodelario (pictured)
Maya Jama plays the stylish partner or companion of a criminal associate in the show’s underworld
But that’s Guy Ritchie’s trademark, and has been since Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels almost thirty years ago. He teases and tickles us with one-liners, bad puns and slapstick… and then unleashes ultra-violence as if it’s all part of the cartoon fun.
If this gangster drama took itself more seriously, the execution of a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer at his desk would be too much to bear – with a clear plastic bag over his head filling with blood before his brains are blown out.
But in The Gentlemen, that’s all part of the hustle and bustle. Geoff will tut-tut, and the Duke will mutter a polite joke, and the mess will be cleared away as easily as the butler empties the drawing room ashtray of cigar butts after a late evening.
The real sound of the show is provided not by Theo James, who subscribes to the Roger Moore school of eyebrow-only acting, but by Kaya Scodelario. She plays Susie Glass, Bobby’s daughter, and the mastermind behind the Duke’s drug empire.
Of all the villains in The Gentlemen, it’s the lady you really don’t want to encounter.
Amid the antics and shouting, Ritchie likes to occasionally inject a touch of real class satire. Examining the mix of toffs, big boys, fools and fakes who shoot birds out of the sky with antique shotguns, the Duke notes: ‘Shoots are never about killing, they’re always about making deals. It’s an alibi to fuse together a collection of disparate villains.’
This collection of diverse villains is worth at least eight hours of anyone’s time. It’s great.
