The Gentlemen (2020)

Guy Ritchie showcases in The Gentlemen his characteristic style: witty dialogues, a labyrinthine narrative structure, and charismatic criminal characters operating in London's marijuana underworld. The film constructs a universe where drug trafficking is presented as a sophisticated chessboard, populated by criminal entrepreneurs who negotiate empires with the same elegance as a corporate executive.

The central problem is not the violence—stylized but present in shootouts, beatings, and executions—nor the constant foul language, both predictable in the genre and the R-rating. The problem is the glamorous aesthetic that envelops everything: Mickey Pearson is rich, refined, successful, and never pays a real moral price for his decades trafficking drugs. The film does not show the lives destroyed by addiction nor the systemic corruption that fuels this business. It merely shows the ingenuity, the cunning, and the style.

For parents: this is not satire that condemns by contrast nor a moral drama that warns. It is entertainment that romanticizes crime, making it attractive and amusing. Ritchie's black comedy does not pose uncomfortable questions about the protagonist—it celebrates him. The script is brilliant, the performances solid, the direction impeccable, but all that talent is invested in making desirable a world that in reality destroys entire communities. Not recommended for minors nor for adults without a developed critical judgment regarding the difference between seeing and admiring.