• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
This is promotional material for the series "The Gentlemen," streaming, Netflix. (OSV News illustration/Netflix)

TV Review: ‘The Gentlemen,’ streaming, Netflix

April 10, 2024
By John Mulderig
OSV News
Filed Under: Movie & Television Reviews

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

NEW YORK (OSV News) – Can an aristocratic lifestyle and a secret narcotics business mix? According to both his eponymous 2020 film and its current small-screen variation, “The Gentlemen,” showrunner Guy Ritchie thinks they can. The series, comprising eight hour-long episodes, is streaming now on Netflix.

Although he has been known to stray from the formula, many of Ritchie’s productions involve a familiar recipe. He tends to populate an underworld milieu with eccentric characters exchanging sharp — but also sometimes comically dumb — dialogue. Additionally, he’s not shy about graphic depictions of violence.

Nonetheless, although Ritchie’s projects tend to be edgy, sometimes the mayhem is kept sufficiently under wraps for viewers to be able to appreciate the more acceptable elements incorporated into his work. That was the case, for instance, with last year’s humorous espionage movie “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre.”

Unfortunately, along with a few moments of intense gory violence, his latest production comes burdened with a diffuse plot and an overall feeling of slackness. More significantly, it also contains a treatment of Christian faith that plays fast and loose with religious sensibilities.

Theo James plays coolheaded United Nations peacekeeping officer Eddie Horniman. The younger son of a duke, Eddie is summoned home from his duties in the Middle East to be present at the deathbed of his elderly father, Archibald (Edward Fox).

At the subsequent reading of the will, Eddie is surprised to learn that he and not his older brother, Freddy (Daniel Ings), is to be the heir both to Dad’s title and to the family’s vast estate. Two other revelations follow in short order.

First, Eddie discovers that selfish nitwit Freddy, a cocaine addict with a fondness for gambling, owes millions to a ruthless gangster. Second, he’s informed by Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario), the daughter of a different kingpin, that her criminal clan has, for years, been using tunnels under the grounds of the Horniman’s stately home to run a huge cannabis growing operation.

Since his share of the profits from this enterprise constituted the late duke’s primary source of income, his successor finds himself in a quandary. The only way to get Freddie out of his potentially fatal jam, it seems, is for Eddie to go on cooperating with Susie and her imprisoned pa, Bobby (Ray Winstone), and see if they’ll help raise the necessary funds in the short term.

Numerous complications follow, including the interest Stanley Johnston (Giancarlo Esposito), a suave but initially mysterious billionaire, takes in purchasing the property Eddie has just inherited. Freddie, meanwhile, goes on getting himself into ever deeper trouble.

John Dixon (Pearce Quigley), the mob boss to whom Freddy is in debt, turns out to be a pseudo-religious fanatic nicknamed The Gospel. He spouts scripture verses while his minions torture and kill opponents but also, paradoxically, runs some kind of a faith-based recovery program.

Over the two installments viewed, this portion of the plot isn’t used to attack religion. Dixon is clearly portrayed as deranged and his use of Biblical imagery is just so much twisted hypocrisy.

Still, if the tone of the scenes in which Dixon features are not sacrilegious, they’re not exactly respectful either. Ritchie and his co-writer for these episodes, Matthew Read, trivialize the sacred and make use of it for their own ends.

Along with the pervasive off-color language employed to reinforce the rough-grained nature of the proceedings, this dubious harnessing of Christian material to putatively comic effect should give even adult TV fans pause. All the more so since, in purely dramatic terms, “The Gentlemen” pays very modest dividends.

Read More Movie & TV Reviews

Home viewing roundup: What’s available to stream and what’s on horizon

Movie Review: ‘How to Train Your Dragon’

Movie Review: ‘The Ritual’

Inspired by millennial soon-to-be-saint, Irish teens created animated Lego-Carlo Acutis film

‘The Ritual’ seeks to portray exorcism respectfully

Movie Review: ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’

Copyright © 2024 OSV News

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

John Mulderig

View all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Religious sisters played role in pope’s formation in grade school, N.J. province discovers

  • With an Augustinian in chair of St. Peter, order sees growing interest in vocations

  • Hundreds gather at Rebuilt Conference 2025 to ‘imagine what’s possible’ in parish ministry

  • Indiana Catholic shares story of his life-changing bond with friend who is now Pope Leo

  • Washington Archdiocese announces layoffs, spending cuts, restructuring

| CURRENT EDITION |

| Vatican News |

Vatican bank reports increased profits, charitable giving

UN secretary-general meets Pope Leo, top Vatican officials

Call out to Jesus for healing; he will hear you, pope says

Papal diplomats must always defend poor, religious freedom, pope says

Pope Leo’s core identity is Augustinian, say religious

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

| Movie & Television Reviews |

Home viewing roundup: What’s available to stream and what’s on horizon

Movie Review: ‘How to Train Your Dragon’

Movie Review: ‘The Ritual’

Inspired by millennial soon-to-be-saint, Irish teens created animated Lego-Carlo Acutis film

‘The Ritual’ seeks to portray exorcism respectfully

| En español |

‘No tengan miedo de hacer lo que El Señor quiere para nosotros’

Dios quiere ayudar a las personas a descubrir su valor y dignidad, dice el Papa

El ‘Padre Migrante’ nos relata su vida sirviendo a comunidades inmigrantes

El ‘Obispo Bruce’ forjó fuertes lazos con Baltimore en tiempos difíciles y tenía corazón de pastor

El Papa León comienza su pontificado pidiendo una ‘Iglesia unida’ en un mundo herido

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Prayers continue for release of abducted Nigerian priest who recently served in Alaska
  • Kyiv’s historic cathedral damaged in Russian air strikes
  • Vatican bank reports increased profits, charitable giving
  • UN secretary-general meets Pope Leo, top Vatican officials
  • Call out to Jesus for healing; he will hear you, pope says
  • Movie Review: ‘How to Train Your Dragon’
  • Yes, it’s our war, too
  • OLPH’s fourth eucharistic procession, set for June 21, ‘speaks to the heart’
  • Home viewing roundup: What’s available to stream and what’s on horizon

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en