TL;DR – While the characters are a delight in this wacky world, the story struggles in the end.  

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series.

The Gentlemen Review –

It wasn’t all that long ago that I sat down to watch a truly bonkers yet very rough film called The Gentlemen. I hadn’t thought in a while, but as I was watching, snippets came back to me, and I remembered how genuinely wild it was. Well, the first episode, Refined Aggression, worked very well.

So the question is, can this promise last the whole season?     So to set the scene, we find ourselves on the Türkiye/Syrian Border at a United Nations manned checkpoint. It is just an ordinary day until the Unit Leader Eddie (Theo James) discovers that his father is gravely ill and he is needed at home. A world of luxury awaits, a far distance from the rural Middle East. It should be a short trip because 600 hundred years of tradition means that the title and lands go to the first-born son, Freddy (Daniel Ings), which makes the will reading all that more perplexing. I sure hope no one has any significant debts that could complicate things. Nor what Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario) is doing under the stables. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

At the heart of this, and what makes it work as well as it does, is the relationship between Edward “Eddie” Horniman, the new Duke of Halstead, and Susie Glass, the de facto head of Bobby Glass’ crime syndicate. Theo James and Kaya Scodelario have fantastic chemistry with each other. No matter when they are working together or working against each other, It is their arc that drives so much of the story as they both circle each other like predators working to take down the same prey animal, but just not sure if the other will betray them afterwards. It is the glue that holds the entire series together.  

The next strength is the supporting cast, who have a habit of exploding onto the screen, chewing all of the scenery, being several shades of problematic, and then disappearing until they are needed to appear in the finale. You have Kristofer Hivju popping up as the Belgian Florian de Groot undercutting everyone because Brexit put border controls back up. Or the always delightful Guz Khan, who plays Chucky, a cleaner of money and Korean Corndog promoter. These characters work best when they appear in one episode or a sparing recurring role. So they don’t lose their impact. For example, Giancarlo Esposito is always present as Stanley Johnston, even when he does not have a heap of screen time. However, with Fredrick “Freddy” Horniman (Daniel Ings), the series starts out strong like a raging fire and then it kind of just flounders.

Visually, the show takes a lot of strength from their location work. You can talk about this guy being a Duke, but you buy it immediately because the scenery is there. How much of the set dressing is in situ, and how much is dressing? I don’t know, but every room feels right. Even when that room is covered in a layer of blood, this is then juxtaposed with the growing labs full of harsh neon colours, creating the visual conflict between the two different worlds on the estate.   

Each episode is interesting, and the build throughout the season works. However, for me, the final episodes fell a little flat. I think that came down to how they used Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone). Throughout the series, he is presented as a stumbling block to our central core. He wouldn’t let Susie take the company in a new direction while also forcing Eddie to stay in the game when he wanted out. He refused to see the torpedo coming towards the team, leading to his son Jack (Harry Goodwins) getting beaten into a coma. However, the end presents him as some mastermind, pushing them together. While the series did enough set-up to show how Stanley Johnston (Giancarlo Esposito) was pulling the strings. However, with Bobby, it felt like a forced swerve at the last second, which should not have been a significant problem if it was not the critical climax of the show, with the deflated resolution of Gospel John (Pearce Quigley).

In the end, do we recommend The Gentlemen? Well, I don’t think it entirely stuck the landing. However, the ride to get to the end was still a fascinating time. The characters were a blast, the situations were amusing, and I do hope we see some more time in this world.   

https://youtu.be/wyEOwHrpZH4?si=bsh41Jt4OKfJUSvr

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen The Gentlemen yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 
  
Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of The Gentlemen
Directed by – Guy Ritchie, Nima Nourizadeh, Eran Creevy & David Caffrey
Written by – Guy Ritchie, Matthew Read, Haleema Mirza, Billy Mason Wood, Theo Mason Wood, Stuart Carolan & John Jackson  
Created by – Guy Ritchie
Based On – The Gentlemen by Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson & Bill Block
Production/Distribution Companies – Moonage Pictures, Miramax Television & Netflix
Starring – Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, Daniel Ings, Joely Richardson, Vinnie Jones, Ray Winstone & Giancarlo Esposito with Freddie Fox, Edward Fox, Joshua McGuire, Kristofer Hivju, Laurence O’Fuarain, Ranjit Krishnamma, Peter Serafinowicz, Harry Goodwins, Jasmine Blackborow, Chanel Cresswell, Pearce Quigley, Dar Salim, Michael Vu, Gaïa Weiss & Guz Khan and Matthew Hawksley, Stephane Fichet, John McGrellis, Alexis Rodney, Jade Willis, Mason Antonio Fardowe, Logan Dean, Josh Finan, Camilla Roholm, Michael Elkin, Ruby Sear, Miki Davies, Cameron Cook, Andi Jashy, Martha Millan, Sean Richards-Mulzac, Helder Fernandes, Reslav Shipkaliev, David Gant, Camilla Rutherford, John Thomson, Hon Ping Tang, Oriana Rodrigues-Cova, Will Blacker, Leah McNamara, Hughie Blacker, Amanda Minihan, Forrest Bothwell, Emily Eaton-Plowright, Asam Kiani, Max Beesley, Gary Beadle, Mark Rhino Smith, Nigel Havers, Jasper Ryan-Carter & Po Wong
Episodes Covered – Refined Aggression, Tackle Tommy Woo Woo, Where’s My Weed At?, An Unsympathetic Gentlemen, I’ve Hundreds of Cousins, All Eventualities, Not Without Danger & The Gospel According to Bobby Glass