Takes a gangster to know a gangster (well, sort of) as Guy Ritchie returns to his lowbrow roots for probably his best film since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. This gangster caper is wittier, less macho, albeit ‘un-woke’ appropriate but with sufficient swagger.
As ever, Ritchie is class-conscious, swapping out criminal lowlifes with an ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ flair. (A colleague reminded me that he was always the “low-rent British Tarantino” and that can certainly be recognized in some of this films’ scenes.)
When a drug lord, Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) tries to sell off his highly profitable empire to a dynasty of Oklahoma billionaires, all bribery, blackmail, artful dodgers, even Collin Farrell, and plot schemes ensue. Apparently, Pearson made his mark as an Oxford student back in the day by targeting broke Aristocrats, and in an effort to help their family fortunes by growing/hiding cannabis on their manor properties. Now Pearson just wants to retire. But, what would a manor house be without the ice princess herself Rosalind (Michelle Dockery), Pearson’s beautiful wife, “Lady Mary.”
But, the heart of the film is Fletcher (Hugh Grant) as a sleazy investigative screenwriter. Outside Grant’s usual comfort zone, his role includes a hilarious cockney accent, and his persona could almost be mistaken as a Michael Caine type, with thick glasses and goatee. Grant beloved for his comedies, have been gravitating to detective fare like his TV show A Very English Scandal, earning him both BAFTA and Golden Globe noms. (sidenote: What’s really ironic here is that the Chiswick native has spent his life fighting The Daily Mail for phone-hacking and gossip columns, yet steps into a role exactly that by rubbing shoulders with a rag called The Daily Print.)
Amidst the films quirky mayhem, less violence occurs than Ritchie’s past projects though an R rating was required in this cheerful tongue-in-cheek effort that gets a little too zany in its second half. But that’s okay, it fulfills its mission of being entertaining though far from what one would call ‘good.’ 3 tiaras