About The Gentlemen (Season 2)
Post 2059:
Guy Ritchie put out another season of The Gentlemen. Before I get into it, could be worthwhile to reflect on his work. I think I saw Snatch in the theaters and loved it. The editing and dialogue and pacing were all fresh and funny. He knows how to build a character in thirty seconds better than most people. He’ll show you a gangster with a funny name and a defining set of traits with six or seven quick cuts and you’re hooked. He’s a talented guy who’s had a strong career.
He also makes some real crappers. He did some movie that basically went straight to streaming recently called Grey something or other—I’d look it up but it was so inept it’s not worth the keystrokes. All I remember is that it had to set the world record for exposition. The movie was explained with voiceovers as the movie was going. What’s the point of filming, I remembered thinking.
It probably comes down to making lots stuff. At times, you’ll miss. That happens. HIs misses are epic though, no getting around it.
Getting back to The Gentlemen, I’d probably recommend it. The main character is a great actor and holds it all together. His character goes through quite an arc this season, and it’s actually pretty dark and emotional in parts. There are a couple things you see coming that still hit really hard.
A couple criticisms. Like a lot of TV that catalogues the building of an empire or a vast criminal network, it can turn into a video game fetch quest. Get this thing so the guy will do you a favor so you can move to the next level—that sort of thing. While generally paying off and serving larger purposes, it feels like maybe there were one or two threads we didn’t need.
Hey, gotta fill that run time. And I imagine when you make a deal with Netflix, you have to give them a certain amount of content to keep them writing checks. Nature of the business.
The diversions are usually amusing and don’t wander too far off the main point, so well done. Couple real strengths—the theme of power throughout history and how one attains it in the modern world. Eddie, the main character, is basically an aspiring king. There are good kings and bad kings, but there's a bit of ruthlessness required to hold power. People betray. Even those closest. The refined and well-spoken Eddie is in a world strewn with barbarity, walking a very fine line. This is the larger point, I suppose. How does a man raised to be noble maintain his veneer (and to some extend his decency) make cruel and terrible decisions? The guilt or lack thereof is the most interesting aspect of the show.
More superficially but still important, there’s a lot of humor and a cavalcade of quirky reprobates and scoundrels to entertain. It’s pretty freaking good, especially by today’s standards. Well shot, generally great dialogue, and it only lags a few times. Ray Winston and Theo James are fantastic just about every time they’re on screen.
The black morality gets to me sometimes, making it hard to identify with some of the main characters. If things get too heartless and perfunctory, they can get boring. But that’s the thing. These are bad people. They just happen to be fun to watch. An interesting show, still better than the movie of the same name.
Cheers and see you after.
