The Unchivalrous Gentlemen
If you’re looking for the quintessential gangster crime film then look no further. Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen (2019) is a deeply layered film in which the private detective Fletcher recounts the story of Micky Pearson, a man in charge of a large marijuana empire. When word gets out that Fletcher is looking to leave the marijuana business, a multitude of violence and blackmail emerges from gangsters looking to obtain his empire. As an unreliable narrator telling the story from his screenplay, appropriately titled “Bush,” Fletcher gives an apt sense of the tone through his multitude of “smash cuts” and descriptive narration.
Notably, a genre film is a movie category produced with the intent of fitting into a specific genre with an existing audience. With the development of American film in Hollywood, emerged numerous popular film types similar in form, style, imagery, and subject matter which became established as genres. These genre films are comprised of the same, or very similar settings, characters, and plot lines. One of which is the crime genre. A crime fiction film is a cinematic genre often involving a potential crime and its detection. A subgenre of the crime film is the gangster film, which accentuates organized crime and gangster lifestyle, often involving illegal actions. The Gentlemen fits both definitions. Thus, The Gentlemen is a hybrid of both genres, making it a gangster crime film.
This is how… The main characters fit archetypal “crime” film characters to a tee. You have the “mob boss” type in the form of “Mickey Pearson,” a drug lord who contemplates giving up his marijuana empire. Similarly, the antagonist Dry Eye is a Chinese gangster plotting against Pearson and his domain. Matthew Berger is a billionaire who is looking to buy Pearson’s business. However, there is a scheme between Dry Eye and Matthew Berger to drive down the price of Pearson’s business by raiding one of Pearson’s farms. What could possibly go wrong?
Such is the case within the “crime” genre. Someone steps on someone else’s toes and what follows is a trail of violence, bribery, and blackmail. In The Gentlemen, this is the case as Pearson forces Berger inside a freezer, where he will die unless he transfers Pearson the funds for his cannabis business. For Berger, it is a matter and death with Dry Eye’s frozen body in the freezer. Clearly there is a trail of bribery and blackmail from Pearson. Here, Pearson is portraying a traditional gangster character of a “crime” film as he is running his operations out of a large, underground criminal organization, and is threatening a potential buyer and a rival with violence. In this case, the organizational dynamic fits the “gangster” film, while the violent aspect fits the “crime” film type. Collectively, these narrative elements encapsulate this picture into the subgenre of a gangster crime film.
Correspondingly, crime narratives involve an affective trajectory wherein feelings of curiosity, anxiety, and suspense are generated, producing a powerful and pleasurable sensation of closure. Evidently, The Gentlemen encompasses these characteristics as well. There is undeniable suspense through the blackmailing towards Mickey Pearson, as Dry Eye tries to kidnap Pearson’s wife Rosalind. Suitable for a crime film, what follows is a powerful and pleasurable sensation of closure, in the words of author Ria Cheyne. Pearson saves his wife by killing Dry Eye, and the couple embraces, shortly thereafter returning to their cannabis stock, more powerful and insured than before.
Stylistically, gangster films usually take place in a dimly lit urban city location, with characters wearing formal outfits such as suits and dresses and containing iconography of guns, drugs, and money. Appropriately, Mickey and Rosalind Pearson receive a gold-plated pistol/paperweight as a gift, a clear indicator of potential crime. Still in need more gangster iconography? The “trunk shot” is a staple of the crime film which is used in The Gentlemen. This shot comes from the point of view on the victim Dry Eye inside the trunk, as the viewer sees the two henchmen standing over the victim dominantly, from a low-angle.
Furthermore, in a traditional crime film, the protagonist and the interpreting reader move from ignorance towards knowledge, as the who, why, and how of the crime is uncovered. This is the case with The Gentlemen, as the opening sequence of the film reveals Mickey Pearson shot in a pub. However, later in the film, it is revealed that Ray shot the person trying to kill Pearson. It is only at this point in the film that it becomes clear Pearson lives, and the viewer is now aware of Fletcher’s dramatic irony. This narrative deception and suspense are clear iterations of a gangster crime film and just a few crime genre elements that Guy Ritchie does not shy away from.
