Why The Gentlemen Is the Best Thing Streaming Right Now

Netflix The Gentlemen, Guy Ritchie series expansion of his 2019 film, follows Eddie Halstead, played by Theo James, an aristocratic British army officer who inherits his father estate and discovers it sits atop a massive cannabis operation.

There is no character overlap with the 2019 film. Ritchie kept the premise, the aristocracy-meets-weed setup and the tone, then built a new cast around it. You can watch the series having never seen the McConaughey and Hugh Grant version and lose nothing. Eddie inherits the dukedom of Halstead ahead of his older brother, which is the engine of the plot: a second son handed a title, an estate and a criminal tenant he did not know existed.

Theo James brings a deadpan charm that distinguishes his Eddie from the film characters. He is a man of principle trapped in a world of criminals, and his attempts to maintain dignity create comedy that is both situational and character-driven.

Ritchie visual style, rapid editing, split screens, slow motion set to needle drops, and sweeping tracking shots through English country estates, is in full effect.

Daniel Ings steals it as Freddy, the older brother who was passed over and who is a walking liability from his first scene. He owes money to the wrong people, he is high for most of the eight episodes, and Ings plays the humiliation without ever asking you to feel sorry for him. If you only know him from Lovesick, this is a different register entirely.

The ensemble cast is stacked with British talent. Kaya Scodelario, Vinnie Jones, Ray Winstone, and Giancarlo Esposito each bring distinct energy.

The estates are real. Halstead Manor is Badminton House in Gloucestershire, with much of the rest shot around Bath and the West Country. That matters, because the joke only works if the house is genuinely enormous. No set sells the gap between a marble hall and an industrial grow operation buried under the paddock.

The cannabis industry framing gives the show a contemporary edge, exploring how the British aristocracy could theoretically intersect with organized agriculture.

Kaya Scodelario plays Susie Glass, who runs the operation on behalf of her father Bobby, played by Ray Winstone from a prison cell, and Susie is plainly the competent one. Giancarlo Esposito arrives as an American buyer and does the thing he always does, which is fine. Vinnie Jones is used more sparingly than you expect and is better for it.

Set expectations at the right level. This is not Lock, Stock, and it is not trying to be prestige drama either. It is eight forty-five-minute episodes of well-dressed people committing crimes in beautiful rooms, with a plot that more or less resets each week. A second series has been ordered. Watch it two at a time with something to drink.

Stream on Netflix at https://www.netflix.com/title/81549788.

The Gentlemen is essential for anyone who wants eight episodes of pure entertainment. Ritchie particular brand of British crime comedy has never worked better than it does here.