The Gentlemen: Hurawatch

The Gentlemen: Hurawatch

Blog Article

"Not all mediums work the same way" is a phrase that fits almost everything. For example, whether you appreciate or descredit Guy Ritchie's overall film quality, his best works have a certain rhythm and flow to them, like the pace of ‘Snatch’ and the gutwrenching momentum of ‘Wrath of Man’. Once I found out that his movie “The Gentlemen” was being developed into a Netflix series, I couldn't shake off the feeling that he wouldn't be able to adapt his flow to episodic television. For the most part, I was right.

I won’t be too harsh. “The Gentlemen” isn’t completely awful, just mediocre, which is admittedly an improvement over his other works. It does feature some enjoyable supporting performances and entertaining moments, which unfortunately, are surrounded by overly long scenes. It feels as though you can feel Ritchie and his crew twiddling their thumbs waiting to get back to the entertaining parts. While the pacing generally works to its advantage and allows for brisk, Ritchie-style inventive touches, the overarching season-long story lacks in effort and becomes exhausting. It makes you indifferent about the fate of anyone in the show.”

Eddie Horniman (Theo James) depicts a stylish man who gets pulled into an underworld that he is always desperate to escape. Following the death of his affluent father, Eddie learns of several shady associates that his old man had, which quickly results in the heir having to help manage a variety of criminal activities out of the lavish Horniman estate. This actually begins when Eddie’s imbecile brother (Daniel Ings) has defaulted on paying back a significant sum to some drug dealers. This adds fuel to the fire regarding an embarrassingly extended premiere scene in which he chicken-dances for debt collectors. Anyone familiar with Ritchie’s movies is going to know where this scene is going, which is part of the overarching problem with “The Gentlemen,” which is that all negotiations are bound to end poorly. Somehow, there will be hyper-edited face-t0-face fighting, and a few needle drops along the way. The playbook is too familiar, and so is the dialogue.

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If you're curious when Matthew McConaughey and Hugh Grant will come out, please note that this is not the show you are wishing for. This is a spin-off only in tone and theme capturing the universe of wealthy criminals in the U.K. while making an occasional nod to the film without direct relevance. It’s a spiritual sibling, another story of aristocrats who, under the ostentatious, head a world of crime empires. It also has a bunch of Ritchie’s stylistic touches to integrate it with the film, including captions that are scribbled over which serve to explain the criminal activities, or billy dialogue.

First off, no one can sustain being the coolest cat in the room for eight hours straight. Eddie, in particular, gets swept up in all the action, which is partly due to an underwritten role but mostly a lackluster performance from James that leaves a black hole at the heart of the show. Kaya Scodelario, as the co-lead, fares much better as the woman who basically serves as Eddie’s liaison to the world of crime, and who gets her own rich narrative later on in the season. She saves the show as much as it tries to collapse, and she does it with a confident, nuanced performance.

As with many Ritchie projects, there's plenty of peripheral enjoyment to be had from the subtle performance by Ritchie BFF Vinnie Jones, alongside notable guest appearances from crime genre veterans Giancarlo Esposito and Ray Winstone. Some of the supporters feel unbalanced—Joely Richardson’s character is anemic, while the sweet stoner character played by Michael Vu overstays his goofy welcome—and that feels emblematic of the broader rough around the edges approach to the show’s narrative. Major scenes are seldom accompanied by subplots, filled with characters noticing one another, which is too chaotic and messy to make sense of, and lacks any irrefutable logic (at least until Scodelario does her work to steady the whole thing). It’s actually quite astonishing how restrained this is for a Ritchie project, as if it was originally set up at some network like TNT and retooled when it scored the Netflix. We know Ritchie's penchant for shock value has gotten him in hot water before, but at least that’s more interesting than this lukewarm stew.

There comes a time when viewers notice Eddie evolve throughout the season. By the end, he comes to the conclusion that he does, in fact, excel at managing a criminal enterprise which leads viewers to wonder why it could not have simply been a spinoff or sequel series to a film. There is a chance Eddie learns he does belong where he is. If only the show that centers on him doesn’t end up falling short.