The Gentlemen (2020)

Elevator Pitch: Mickey Pearson is an American drug lord, trying to sell his business to one of a number of possible candidates. Meanwhile he and his assistants are being stalked by Fletcher, a private investigator, who has been commissioned by a newspaper editor to get the story, but instead goes to Mickey’s right hand man, Ray, with the full story, or at least his version and wants £20 million for it. The business is based on marijuana farms in stately homes, and material to the story is the fact that one of the lords asks Mickey to recover his daughter from a squat, and also that a bunch of young men steal the product from one of the farms.

Content: Fletcher and Ray spend time together at Ray’s luxury house and Fletcher as a consequence provides an extended exposition of the plot in a cod London accent. There is no sex or nudity but a lot of swearing and racial and homophobic insults, and some drug taking.  There is violence with knives and firearms and meetings in various places as the characters discuss the sale and purchase and are threatened in various ways. “Coach” and the young men who have stolen the marijuana are variously involved.

A View: This film was not disliked by the critics and has made quite a bit of money, but as soon as Hugh Grant, as Fletcher, opened his mouth and gave us his attempt at a south London accent I was ready to get up and leave. Heavens, at least one of the characters could have been something other than full on fake cockney. I found myself trying to place Fletcher’s accent – he was imitating Ricky Gervais. Then about half way through, at the end of the interminable set-up, the tone changed and it became at least watchable. But I still resent having paid for a ticket and contributed to the film’s success.

Additional info: Some people laughed at some of the dialogue in the screen in which we saw it. But they might have been entertained by the Spanish subtitles.