REVIEW: ‘The Gentlemen’ Is The Ritchiest Guy Ritchie In The Best Way

The Gentlemen (2019) is focused on an American businessman dead set on selling his cannabis empire. In doing so, he kicks a hornet’s nest and sets off a chain of events that can’t be undone. The Netflix Original series by filmmaker Guy Ritchie, The Gentlemen (2024), returns to the original film’s world but isn’t connected to it through characters or events.

The only connection is the goal of the main character. Sell a drug empire, make money, and get out of it all. Created, written, and directed by Guy Ritchie, the series stars Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, Daniel Ings, Vinnie Jones, and Giancarlo Esposito.

In The Gentlemen Season 1, Theo James replaces Matthew McConaughey as Ritchie’s leading man. When Eddie Horniman (Theo James) unexpectedly inherits his father’s sizeable country estate, he discovers it is a part of a cannabis empire. When his brother Freddy (Daniel Ings) reveals he’s been running up millions in debt to a gang, Eddie is left to sort it all out.

From the first episode to the last, a chain reaction of events and crime brings a host of unsavory characters from Britain’s criminal underworld into Eddie’s life. They all want a piece of the operation, and well, he’s never been a drug kingpin before. Determined to extricate his family from their clutches, Eddie tries to play the gangsters at their own game. Instead, he gets sucked into the world of criminality and finds out that he’s actually good at it.

The Gentlemen Season 1 captures the eccentricity of family drama as only Guy Ritchie can.

To start, the humor in The Gentlemen Season 1 is more refined than what we saw in the film of the same name. Only in its refinement does it become sharper, which allows it to be executed well. Add in the fact that James can play with his identity as a leading action man, and also, someone stumbling into succeeding unexpectedly makes him endlessly endearing. His chemistry with every character in the ensemble cast also builds the humor into something familiar that works nearly perfectly.

The eccentric ensemble cast expertly expands a world Guy Ritchie first approached with his 2019 film and does so wonderfully. Every character carries a bevy of idiosyncrasies that are more than mere gimmicks. The eight-episode series allows what would have been one-note comedic characters and makes them something more.

While Eddie and Susie (Kaya Scodelario) are tough as nails and competent, Freddy is an absolute nincompoop. Drug-addled and selfish, Freddy is the reason why everything goes downhill. But Freddy has depth, too. Even when Ritchie uses the final episodes to bring the story full circle, closing the first comedic error, nothing feels rehashed or flattened.

Kaya Scodelario’s Susie is the perfect counterbalance to Theo James’ Eddie.

On the action front, Guy Ritchie’s decadent style is toned down. Instead of being a high-octane, action-packed series, The Gentlemen Season 1 moves more slowly. There are hard punches, a machete, and violence to spare.  All is done with restraint, making the snowballing comedy of errors shine.  The series can still deliver the impact even with its limited physical action sequences.

There is as much action as you would expect from drug dealing and crime family fights. But the story that Ritchie charts winds through situational comedy brilliantly. Each episode focuses on one more part of Eddie’s attempt to leave the world of drugs and bookies his father and brother have left at his feet.

The Horniman family may be central to The Gentlemen (2024), but the Glass family is equally as compelling. Susie Glass is right at Eddie’s side. She’s more callous than he and quicker to anger. She’s more violent and more unshakable in her choices. She is the powerful current that pushes the series forward, subtle at first and then sharply as the Glass and the Horniman begin to put their interest ahead of their joint goal.

Together, Susie and Eddie balance against each other. They move their way through each compounding error and bad luck streak and do so wonderfully. With Freddy running amok with every plan they hatch, there is a wonderful push and pull of competence and chaotic ignorance.

The Gentlemen Season 1 is Guy Ritchie’s best work, both decadent and restrained in the perfect amounts.

The Gentlemen (2024) is both Ritchie’s most decadent work and his most restrained. No episode is stuffed too full. Every bit of the humor and violence is executed in sync. They accent each other, hold each other up, and make The Gentlemen (2024) a stunning series. Crime, mystery, action, comedy, it’s all there. Still, how Ritchie blends it across each episode makes this his standout work.

In The Gentlemen Season 1, Guy Ritchie is at his Ritchiest. The TV series format allows The Gentlemen to reach its full potential. This allows the more chaotic moments to stand out instead of feeling shoved in. Ritchie may be better suited for television, and I mean that with the utmost respect.

The Gentlemen (2024) is one of the few times a TV series tie-in matches and sometimes exceeds its cinematic predecessor. It’s funny, darkly humorous, and the visuals are decadent. Every costume and set is dripping with that high-class British aesthetic, making Americans fall over themselves. Made with a vibrant palette in mind and the choice to handwrite context on pivotal scenes as exposition is the best I’ve seen done. With all of that, The Gentlemen is Guy Ritchie’s finest work, and the charismatic cast carries it across the finish line.

The Gentlemen Season 1 (2024) is streaming exclusively on Netflix now, with Season 2 on the way.