The League Of Gentlemen.
113 Mins. Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan, Bugzy Malone, Colin Farrell & Hugh Grant. Director: Guy Ritchie.
Let me set the scene for you. Its New Year's and its time for the annual family walk. You know big coats, scalfs, appropriate footwear and all that. Looking like the 'Goodfellas' of a Scorsese picture. We're in the middle of a Winter countryside just outside a game pub and probably style traipsing on the private land of someone who 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' may turn us into today's special if we don't say we're local like 'The League Of Gentlemen'. Someone who bluberbuss rocks the tweed and tartan like coming from America, my second favourite Texan, McConaughey's caramel cadence here. Paperweight hands across the pond with a gold prostitute pistol that Waltz used to off DiCaprio to his last dance in Tarantino's 'Django'. Anyway we take a wrong turn or two between the gates and Lucas hedges and those two smoking barrels look mighty appealing right now as we end up knee deep in what I promise you isn't mud. The old joke tells, "what happened when the boy sat under the cow? He got a pat on the head!" Well this one was more like a congratulatory hair tussle. Twisting ankles and embarrassment and sinking quicker than sand I ended up looking like Michael Jackson in the 'Smooth Criminal' video. You didn't know I could get down like that, did you? It was one of those moments were you just wish the ground would open up and swallow you...if it wasn't made of s###! Why am I telling you all this you ask? What's the relevance? What's this got to do with 'Lock, Stock' and 'Snatch' director Guy Ritchie returning to his bread and butter of gangster movies after years of lady Madonna, 'Sherlock Holmes' investigations, 'King Arthur' and 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' remakes and even a rubbing of 'Aladdin's' lamp? Well on this New Year's Day I thought couldn't get more bogged down than that until the plot thickened on Ritchie's rich class of the extraordinary movie, 'The Gentlemen' in the Big Smoke barrels of London boulevard. Like dinner ladies lading more slop on your school dinner tray this slick script could even make Q.T. hush, hush.
Toff guys eat like the snarling on the trigger lion kings here for what was originally going to be called 'Bush' like George or the script that a cocky, Cockney accented, top draw of the four accents and a funeral show and all its parlour tricks, Hugh Grant storytells to the cool, charismatic, compelling charm of Charlie Hunnam. His perfect polar in a lock, stock and two smoking steaks living room to fancy BBQ and bizarre, flirtatious, game sexual tension. One he serves like a nuanced narrator and still part of the story structure 'Usual Suspect' as he's handed the keys (oh and for the record...f### Kevin Spacey and his "Christmastime", 'House Of Cards' message...c### (hey there's more use of that word in this movie than tinsel this time of year, so if the Oxford's not brogues fit)). Forget 'The Irishman' (unless it's Colin Farrell's scene stealer looking halfway house between 'The Royal Tenabaums' and JD Sports) for 'The Gentlemen' in golden circle London Underground typography off Saville Row, looking like the statesmen of a 'Kingsman' sequel before the prequel this month. As an Englishmen, American and Chinaman walk into a pint of snakebit blood and egg soaked bar...and the jokes on everybody. As this movie isn't afraid to call you a C U next Tuesday like you've got plans next week. But stereotype shaking and stirring its all done from a place of affection or one that like from Tarantino 'Once Upon A Time In...Hollywood' couldn't give a f### if you couldn't get the real message. This fun Brit flick is about to snatch your Christmas like 'The Grinch' as you body bag, box up your decorations like Bah Humbug for the 'Peaky Blinders' of a Guy Pearce Scrooged 'A Christmas Carol' that will really give you the Dickens. But this is a different Guy people. The gangster fireworks over the Thames this New Year are a 'Rocknrolla' who's who of Great British and international talent from the man who made Superman suave before you were tossing a coin to 'The Witcher', Sherlock cool, RDJ, Iron Man to Doctor Strange before Cumberbatch, Will Smith a Robin Williams wish worth Genie and also jumpstarted the careers of the likes of 'Hobbs and Shaw' stars Idris Elba and Jason Statham and East End Wimbledon footballer turned Hollywood juggernaut, Vinnie Jones.
Southern comfort and hospitality comes from the drawl of a dry as gin Matthew McConaughey with a cup of Earl Grey tea in this Martini mix tonic of All Star A-Listers. The Longhorn of the 'True Detective', 'Lincoln Lawyer' (how about that for a Harvey Dent, 'Batman' audition) and 'Killer Joe' McConaissance goes on in this show as the 'Dallas Buyers Club' heads to London to sell you a whole other type of shipping container drug, as the "hmm, hmm" cool of McConaughey had never been this British GQ suave. Smartening up next to him is his 'Sons Of Anarchy' right hand man Charlie Hunnam with his own unmistakable voice and a chopper hidden under that raincoat like a Jonah Hill 'War Dog' that could turn the phone screens of a selfie, happy slapping gone extreme, council estate the other way round. This smarter than the rest, comeback quotable mouth, 'Triple Frontier' bespectacled star with the cider beard is as clean and cut as the rest as Richie brings the sword out of his 'King Arthur' stone star again. But for all the big name talent on show here like the 'Godless', 'Downton Abbey' completely curtsy different, dynamic, compelling, but criminally underused Michelle Dockery here, it's Henry Golding in slicked back, leather and fur who steals each scene he's in like his 'Crazy, Rich Asians' did last year. The 'A Simple Favour' charisma machine even bringing some charm out his abhorrently callous character and like the underrated, hallmark Christmas classic 'Last Christmas' he was in this year for George also managing to get in another Bond audition for the man who should be 007 once Daniel Craig hands up the Martini glass. But stirring between character actor greats like Jeremy Strong (can you believe this is the same actor from both 'Selma' and 'Molly's Game' ?) and the hardest working Brit one not named Stephen Graham in Eddie Marsan and shaking it up with 'King Of The North' grime revival rapper Bugzy Malone's amazing acting debut and his viral fight music video with coaches crew it's two legends who steal the show. Our 'In Bruges' favourite Colin Farrell who is on the Yorgos Lanthimos 'The Lobster' and 'Killing Of A Sacred Deer' (the best of that directors work...yep, even better than that Olivia Coleman crowning) form of his life (who is also about to Gotham waddle next to McConaughey's Two Face as the Penguin, although the two down meet on screen here) in a chip shop slapdown and the fellow grandfather frames of an hilarious Hugh Grant. You've never seen the stammering, "ahh...eerm. Terribly sorry. Forgive me for imposing, but I was compelled to come over", rom com legend asking you for scotch and to play a game in these big smoked out war ones pesteringly until you guess again, give in like this before. Even in his blood licking 'Cloud Atlas' villain. The 'U.N.C.L.E' godfather, complete with poster Easter Egg is horse and hounding his way in here to his tabloid journalist masquerading as an investigational one (more like a shylock or s### Sherlock). He's the "s##### brickety" seal that sticks this script together. All in a hotbox of action that explodes on your screen in a puff of smoke this January 1st for the first chime of the year, as we head back to the roaring 20's Gatsby era old sport. Ruling the Kings domain this is one time a 'Gentleman' doesn't say, "after you". Calm the phahuck...down. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Further Filming: 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels', 'The Irishman', 'Kingsman-The Secret Service'.
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