After the vast underperformance of 2017’s “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” and the hefty overperformance of May’s “Aladdin,” we rejoin Guy Ritchie trying to ground himself via a return to his roots.
“The Gentlemen” is the kind of shaggy-dog yarn that Ritchie spun with diminishing returns before the tantalizing paychecks of franchise cinema were dangled his way: a hard-r venture, populated by Rada graduates pointing weapons and cursing at one another between elaborate double-crosses.
The difference is that its director is now in a position to equip his cobblers with the budgetary heft of an American indie (“The Gentlemen” emerges under the apparently deathless Miramax banner) and an altogether starrier ensemble.
The problem is that at no point does Ritchie seem to have realized such material is still, on a fundamental level, bollox.On screen, the story is slapped together by a hack journalist; it feels like it.
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