The Gentlemen

What’s it about?

The Gentlemen follows an aristocrat who finds himself in the drugs business and must outmanoeuvre Britain’s criminal underworld to survive.

Starring

Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, Daniel Ings, Joely Richardson, Giancarlo Esposito, Vinnie Jones, Peter Serafinowicz, Ray Winstone

An Introduction to The Gentlemen

The Gentlemen arrives with better tailoring than most of us have for weddings. We are introduced to the old Duke of Halstead (Edward Fox) who is dying. In the time-honoured way aging British aristocrats start any good show, he is about to depart and leave a mess for someone else to sort out. The family gathers at Halstead Manor, where Eddie Horniman (The White Lotus’ Theo James), a soldier who thought he had moved on from this world, finds out that his father has left him the house, the title and, somewhat awkwardly, the whole estate.

His older brother Freddy (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Daniel Ings) thinks he’s going to get all the money and gets nothing, so you know right away what kind of sibling show The Gentlemen is going for. Freddy is an unstable, money-lacking, completely untrustworthy guy who sees a family crisis as an inconvenience to his social calendar. Eddie is stiff-backed and dutiful, baffled by his newfound fortune and now confused about what’s next.

An enormous cannabis operation sits neatly tucked away on the grounds, behind manicured hedges and centuries of inherited entitlement. Susie Glass (Skins’ Kaya Scodelario) arrives shortly after the funeral to tell Eddie, with an icy manner that suggests that she’s probably had this conversation before, that his late father had made a deal with her family’s criminal enterprise, and that deal carries over to Eddie, whether he wants it or not.

It’s a quick and effective scene setting from director Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), foregoing introspection and grieving in favour of suggesting that England’s upper classes and its criminal underworld have always been rather better off scratching each-other’s proverbial backs than maybe anyone would care to admit. Eddie’s inheritance isn’t simply bricks and mortar, it’s a hostage situation dressed as a stately home, with Susie making it abundantly clear in her first scene that she’s not leaving anytime soon.

Summary

The premise of The Gentlemen is charmingly simple and enjoyably silly in places, a combination that makes it hugely watchable. Imagine the English aristocracy, who have been good at getting away with all manner of things, metaphorically speaking, caught up in a situation with individuals who are a bit more literal in their dealings. Eddie Horniman inherits the title of Duke of Halstead and his father’s stately pile, along with the industrial-scale cannabis operation quietly nestled beneath it, courtesy of the Glass family who’ve been paying handsomely for that privilege for years.

Guy Ritchie built his entire career on cheerful London gangsters trading in banter and menace in equal measure and in The Gentlemen, moves them to a place with nicer wallpaper and a longer family tree. Incidentally, this is a different premise to his 2019 film of the same name, although there are a lot of cross-overs. The sharpest character in the show by a long shot is Susie Glass, the woman running the show on behalf of her father (Sexy Beasts’ Ray Winstone). She is calm and quietly threatening in her own right, and her deft handling of Eddie’s aristocratic discomfort provides much of the fun.

What follows is a splendid bed of alliances, rivalries and ever-more elaborate criminal plots, all of which are delivered with the kind of smirking confidence that only Ritchie can get away with. There’s a moody boxing promoter, a variety of money launderers, a billionaire with an agenda (Breaking Bad‘s Giancarlo Esposito), minor royalty, plus any number of people who probably shouldn’t be trusted with an umbrella, let alone a criminal enterprise. It’s part country house drama and part gangster caper, an unlikely combination that works surprisingly well.

The Gentlemen doesn’t aim to imply there’s anything particularly deep to be said about class or crime, and it knows it. What it has to offer is stylish entertainment, a witty sense of humour, and a cast that is having a blast. Eddie is determined to keep his estate and his conscience as events inevitably escalate. All around him spend their time trying to relieve him of one or the other, and that tug of war keeps the whole thing purring along nicely.

Check out the Season 1 Trailer here: