Netflix: “The Gentlemen” created by Guy Ritchie

In the early 2000s, Guy Ritchie became known for snarky, in-your-face, gangster-light movies like “Snatch” and “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.” He went on to collect big paychecks directing more conventional films like “Sherlock Holmes” and “The Man from UNCLE,” but with his latest creation “The Gentlemen” (Netflix) Ritchie is playing his A-game again.

The eight-episode series is set in present-day England and the protagonist is Eddie Hornimann (Theo James from “White Lotus,” Season 2). Eddie, a captain in a UN military convoy that’s stationed in the Middle East, is summoned back to Halstead Manor, his family’s centuries-old estate, following the death of his father, the 12th Duke of Halstead. As the second-born son, Hornimann (you’ve got to love Ritchie’s profane sense of naming) is the spare to the heir, his older brother Freddie (the English comedian Daniel Ings), and doesn’t expect to inherit the estate. Until of course, he does. Which infuriates Freddie who we soon discover is as impulsive, immature, and short-sighted as one gets—as well as deeply in debt.

Meanwhile Eddie, the new Duke, has discovered that Dearly Departed Dad, in order to keep the homestead going and the money flowing, had allowed a crime syndicate to operate a huge pot-growing operation on the property. Whoa.

Eddie wants out of the deal tutto sweeto, but is stopped in his tracks by Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario), a no-nonsense brunette tasked with running the crime syndicate’s marijuana empire, under the auspices of her father Bobby (Ray Winstone) who resides in a posh prison.

The series follows Eddie’s unsuccessful, elaborate and often very funny attempts to extricate himself from this criminal enterprise. However, his actions get him in deeper and deeper as, in true Ritchie fashion, the plot gets more and more complex. Along the way we meets crazies like “The Gospel John” (Pearce Quigley) who can pray and machine-gun down opponents with equal finesse. There are also crooked boxing schemes a-plenty (boxing being another one of Ritchie’s passions), one involving Susie’s kid brother Jack (Harry Godwins), a hunky middleweight pugilist.

Crooked millionaire Stanley Johnston (Giancarlo Esposito from “Breaking Bad”), is hungry to acquire the estate for the prestige it would afford him. Jimmy (Michael Vu) is the sweet young Vietnamese gent who runs the pot farm despite being stoned out of his mind 24/7. Playing Geoff the loyal groundskeeper is Vinnie Jones who is always looking out for the interests of the Hornimanns, including the Duke’s mother, Lady Sabrina (Joely Richardson) who pronounces the plant “mary-joo-wanna.”

It would not be A-grade Guy Ritchie without gratuitous violence but “The Gentlemen” spaces out the gore so the series’s comic tone is always primary.

The series even suggests a bit of romance. Susie’s never-crack-a-smile core plays well against Eddie’s upright personality. She often steals scenes right out from under him with lines like, “I can be nice, and I can be not so nice. You’ve only seen me in one setting.”

The country interiors, the city apartments, the drop-dead Lambos, the gorgeously attired women—it’s a Guy Ritchie universe from start to finish. Major kudos to him and long-time collaborators like writer Matthew Read and directors like Nima Nourizadeh and David Caffre. Not having another season of “The Gentlemen” would be, well, criminal.

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