Some Guy Ritchie films , like “The Gentlemen,” are big, sloppy fun, while others, like “Wrath of Man,” (2021) are just big and sloppy. In the latter, the soundtrack heralds a menacing tone that persists as one criminal seeks payback from another. There’s lots of standard Ritchie touches – jumping back and forth in time, the audience never quite knowing whose side anyone is on – but some plot points are dwelled upon while others breeze by confusingly. But the tonal bleakness lacks the comic blackness Ritchie is often able to mine from intramural mayhem. Something’s missing in all this carnage. Humanity?
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It was an inspired bit of casting for writer-director Guy Ritchie to make former heartthrob Hugh Grant the weasely linchpin of his British caper flick “The Gentlemen” (2020). Ritchie brings a unique style to this type of film and Grant proves to be a worthy air traffic controller as scenes cut from one character’s perspective to another and back and forth across time. Matthew McConaughey is trying to sell his (illegal) business and he thinks he has a buyer, but cutthroat hijinks ensue. There’s bullets, blood and belly-laughs – sometimes all at once. Ritchie makes it look easier than it is.
I watched “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (2015) with my mom, who is old enough to remember the 1960s TV show. Her assessment? “I liked it, but I don’t think young people would like it, because it’s too quiet.” What she means is that while it’s an action movie, it’s not a video game or a comic book. It’s an actual spy movie with an actual spy plot, human-scale action sequences, and a stylish level of subtlety and pacing that might come across as “quiet” to an 83-year-old woman. Or “boring” to a 16-year-old boy; thus its box-office struggles not surprising.
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