Netflix’s The Gentlemen Is Satisfying Fun in All the Usual Guy Ritchie Ways

In all Guy Ritchie joints—or at least, in all the ones I’ve seen—there’s a certain amused veneration for career criminals. In his vision of the world, they’re all eccentrics, they’re all funny, and even if they happen to be incredibly terrifying and violent human beings, it’s undercut with a wink. This is a world where life and death is fought over with furious intensity, but where it’s also not that important. In fact, suffering is kind of funny, at its heart, and the terror is excusable if it’s done with a certain amount of panache.

If this version of stylized hell sounds ethically horrific, it might be, but in Ritchie’s hands it also happens to be pretty fun. There might even be something slightly Iannucci-like in him; he’s not as funny as the Veep creator, but there’s a shared underlying philosophy that there are no good guys. Where they differ is that Ritchie is obsessed in an almost juvenile way with The Moral Code of the villains, a concept that seems quaint in 2024 but that lets you view his work at a certain distance, and to fully enjoy its slick entertainment.

In the new Netflix series The Gentlemen, a spinoff of the movie of the same name, Ritchie enlists Theo James (that good-looking, no-good husband on The White Lotus) to play Eddie Halstead, an army officer who is called home at the death of his father, a rich duke who leaves the entire estate—and all its problems—to Eddie, passing over his older brother Freddy, a persistent mess of a human played by the increasingly hilarious Daniel Ings. Turns out, the old man was making ends meet by letting a weed conglomerate grown plants in his basement, and it’s not long before Eddie meets Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario), daughter of infamous criminal Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone), who does her best to entangle the new duke further into the criminal underworld while he insists (not very convincingly) that he wants out.

To say the plot isn’t realistic would be to miss the point entirely. It’s not, but who cares? This is Guy Ritchie we’re talking about, and what actually matters is the extent to which the engine purrs. And this one purrs, my friends. The criminals are the usual collection of dead-eyed, witty weirdos, and my favorite was the Scouse drug dealer Gospel John, played by the electric Pearce Quigley. It’s exactly what you would expect from a Ritchie villain—he’s evil, but he quotes Bible verses and brings a kind of lunatic tension to every conversation he has, most of which are punctuated by random, alarming shouts—and Quigley was so good I could have watched an entire series with him. The truth is, though, that everyone is good, from Halstead to Ings to Scodelario to all the minor characters, right down to the perpetually-stoned Jimmy, who does his best to bring down the entire operation because he can’t stop getting seduced by an obvious con artist, and old reliable Giancarlo Esposito, playing a posher version of Gus Fring. Also, yes, of course Vinnie Jones is here; he’s a loyal landlord who leads a quiet country life while also seeming like he’d be willing and eager to kill anyone at the drop of a hat.

It’s a nice role for James especially, who is surrounded by a strong enough cast that he can mostly be himself, look handsome and grim, and let Eddie’s sexual tension with Susie boil almost to the breaking point. When all is said and done, though, Ings might be the breakout star here; as the dissolute Freddy, he combines wild desperation, unearned arrogance, and an overwhelming penchant for self-destruction into a total captivating package.

Like a good, digestible beach novel, this is the kind of show where you’re disappointed to leave each character’s perspective, then quickly wrapped up in the next man or woman in line, and repeat ad infinitum. Ritchie is allergic to boredom, and all the usual quick cuts and sexy graphics and driving music are present here; he knows who he is, and he’s content to run back the hits with slight variations. It’s all very ridiculous, and eminently watchable, and though you can’t really spot a fiber of morality underneath any of it, it’s all so well made that it comes as a kind of palate cleanser for the murderer’s row of boring, overwrought, or substance-free action and crime shows that seem to have littered the streaming world recently. Ritchie’s greatest talent may be that he creates gaudy bubble gum action shows, but that in the moment, he makes it seem to matter. In quick strokes, he creates whole characters, and there may not be a better casting agent in the world; everyone he chooses embodies these psychopaths instantly and perfectly. In the moment of viewing, it overrides my instinct to want to criticize the puffery of it all, the flimsy foundation of pure adrenaline, the absence of the artistic impulse to say anything actually meaningful. I just opened a bottle of wine, hit play, and before I knew it, five immensely entertaining episodes had passed.

The Gentlemen is now streaming on Netflix. 

Shane Ryan is a writer and editor. You can find more of his writing and podcasting at Apocalypse Sports, and follow him on Twitter here .

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