Netflix’s The Gentlemen is a spinoff in spirit from Guy Ritchie’s 2019 film of the same name, sharing its world and tone but telling a new story with new characters. Theo James stars as Eddie Horniman, a former army officer who inherits his family’s aristocratic estate only to discover that a vast cannabis operation has been running beneath it for years. Thrust into the criminal underworld against his will, Eddie must navigate gangsters, corrupt aristocrats, and his own dysfunctional family while deciding whether to dismantle the operation or run it better than anyone before him.
The show immediately establishes its Ritchie bona fides: the zippy editing, the narrated cons and counter-cons, the collision of posh English manners with underworld brutality. If you’ve seen any of Ritchie’s crime films, you know the aesthetic. The question is whether it sustains across eight hours what his films deliver in two.
Guy Ritchie’s Signature Cocktail, Now in Extended Pour
Theo James is a strong lead who brings genuine presence to a role that requires him to be simultaneously out of his depth and completely composed. Eddie’s transition from reluctant inheritor to capable criminal operator is well-paced and believable, and James finds comedy in the character’s exasperated adjustments to a world where violence and six-figure drug deals are part of estate management. His dry delivery of increasingly absurd dialogue is one of the show’s consistent pleasures.
Kaya Scodelario provides excellent counterbalance as Susie Glass, the steely lieutenant of the cannabis operation who becomes Eddie’s unlikely partner. Her character brings the criminal competence that Eddie lacks, and the developing dynamic between them, professional, antagonistic, and gradually respectful, gives the show a reliable engine. Their scenes together crackle with the kind of verbal sparring that Ritchie does best.
The supporting cast is a parade of colorful characters drawn from both sides of the English class divide. Vinnie Jones, Daniel Ings, and Giancarlo Esposito all contribute memorable turns, and the show delights in pairing unlikely people together and watching the friction. The collision of aristocratic propriety with criminal pragmatism provides a seemingly endless supply of comedic situations.
The plotting is intricate in the way Ritchie fans expect, with double-crosses, hidden alliances, and reveals that recontextualize earlier events. The best episodes achieve a satisfying puzzle-box quality where pieces snap together with audible clicks. The show takes genuine pleasure in being clever, and when it works, the audience shares that pleasure.
The Eight-Episode Stretch Exposes the Formula
Guy Ritchie’s style, so effective in two-hour bursts, shows strain across eight hours of television. The quippy dialogue, the narrated montages, the constant escalation of stakes, these tools are deployed with diminishing returns as the series progresses. By the midpoint, some viewers report feeling like they’re watching the same bag of tricks on repeat, and the energy that feels electric in the early episodes becomes mechanical later.
The central cannabis operation, while providing a useful framework, isn’t explored with the depth the format allows. The show treats the drug trade primarily as a plot device rather than examining it with any real curiosity. Given eight hours, a more substantive treatment of the economics, ethics, and logistics of the operation could have added dimension that the style alone can’t provide.
Several subplots feel like padding that exists to fill the season order rather than to advance the story. Eddie’s family members each get their own comedic or dramatic arcs, but not all of them pay off with the same satisfaction. The show juggles more balls than it can consistently track, and a few drop unnoticed.
The show’s depiction of criminality is firmly in the “fun gangster” tradition, where violence has few lasting consequences and criminals are more charming than threatening. This is Ritchie’s signature, but it does limit the show’s ability to generate genuine stakes. When everyone is witty and nobody stays hurt for long, the danger starts to feel cosmetic.
The Aristocracy Was Always a Racket
The Gentlemen’s sharpest running joke is that there’s no meaningful difference between the English aristocracy and organized crime. Both operate through inherited power, both enforce their authority through a mixture of charm and violence, and both depend on maintaining appearances while engaging in activities that wouldn’t survive public scrutiny. Eddie’s realization that managing his estate and managing a drug operation require the same skills isn’t just a comedy premise. It’s the show’s most pointed social observation.
Should You Watch The Gentlemen?
If you enjoy Guy Ritchie’s crime comedies and want a longer version of that experience with a charismatic lead and clever plotting, this delivers. It’s ideal for viewers who want entertaining, stylish television that doesn’t demand heavy emotional investment.
Skip it if you find Ritchie’s signature style exhausting in extended form, or if you need genuine stakes and consequences from your crime dramas.
The Verdict on The Gentlemen
The Gentlemen is a polished, entertaining crime comedy that gives Guy Ritchie fans exactly what they want while revealing the ceiling of that approach across a television season. Theo James and Kaya Scodelario are a strong central pairing, the plotting is satisfyingly twisty, and the show’s comic collision of class and criminality provides reliable entertainment. The formula shows wear in the back half, and the absence of genuine stakes keeps it from transcending its genre. But as pure style-driven entertainment, it delivers with confidence and charm.