2024, Amazon
This is why this is more about blogging than it is about the media being written about; do you really need to endlessly hear about Toasty's anxiety over wasting his time all time?
Guy Ritchie is a prolific fucking guy. OK, looking at IMDB, really not so much, but it was the release of both Guy Ritchie's the Covenant and Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre and almost a movie a year before that which gave me that impression.
You know, a normal guy, a Media Review Guy would just delete that paragraph and write a new one, once he Had Facts.
*cough*
The Gentlemen was a fun little, classic Guy Ritchie movie. I had hoped that he was taking the premise of the movie and just literally reworking it into a TV series, but this was more taking the idea of the movie and.... reworking it into a TV series. As in, the inspiration, the general concept. Really, just the point about weed being grown on a posh British estate.
Seriously??
Edward Horniman (Theo James, Bedlam) is an officer in the UN Peacekeeping force who is unexpectedly called back to England, because his father, The 12th Duke of Halstead, has passed away. That should make Eddie's brother Freddy (Daniel Ings, The Marvels) the new Duke and heir to the estate, except Freddy is a major fuck-up. Eddie does not want to be Duke nor does he want to know about the sorry state the ... estate is in. And Freddy owes 8 million quid to a drug dealer (Peter Serafinowicz, The Tick). Just when Eddie about to sell the whole kit & kaboodle to a posh American (Giancarlo Esposito, The Mandalorian) who wants his own piece of nobility, he learns what dad was really doing -- growing weed for the Glass crime family, under the watch of Susie (Kaya Scodelario, The Maze Runner) while her dad is in (posh) prison. She does not want the arrangement sold, so she agrees to help Eddie out with the Freddy situation.
Posh posh posh (Spice!)
Then Freddy fucks up by killing the drug dealer he owes the money to.
Thus begins a Guy Ritchie style convoluted plot involving multiple crime entities and families and people with colourful accents and backgrounds and clothing. And the whole thing was a blast!!!
Kent already covered it in his useful 1-1-1 style. I was more enthusiastic than he was, so we mostly Agree.
Theo James is just great (and so tweeeeeedy!!) as the British aristocrat who would be happy to be done with his whole messy family situation, but is not afraid to step up when he is needed. That he still loves his brother after the many many MANY ways Freddy fucks up is astounding. He seems to have his own demons that he won't forgive himself for, and as the series progresses, circumstances seem to want him more invested in the crime world than he intends to be. His turnabout by the end should have been more expected, but I was flabbergasted, and more than a bit disappointed with him.
Kay Scodelario is wonderful as the posh-not-posh (a wee bit chav), smart, fancy, impeccably dressed, always in control crime boss. She's harsh, she's tough, she can be cruel because she has to be, but she also betrays what all crime leaders must feel --- a bit of fear that it can so easily come crumbling down around them when just one small thing goes wrong. I rather liked that the two of them kept a working relationship, that the show was able to keep such between two main leads without it all being about the "when will they have sex?!?!"
Giancarlo Esposito has established himself as the smart, capable, well-spoken, control-freak style Bad Guy. Here he is so enigmatic as the American who just wants his part of British aristocracy and will stop at nothing to buy it.
Bonus points for Guz Khan as Chucky, the money launderer who just wants his hotdog food gimmick to be acknowledged by Eddie.
All in all, love the show, cannot wait for another.
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