The Gentlemen

First Hit: A few scenes were to fun watch, but as a film, it was poorly constructed.

I’ve never seen a Guy Ritchie film that I thought was constructed with thoughtfulness and skill. He either attempts to cover too much ground or is more inclined to use pop and dazzle to engage the audience.

In this film, he has to use narration throughout to create, set up, and deliver the story. He hides his inability to write a good screenplay by making the narration of his story part of the storyline his characters say to each other.

Specifically, watch most of the scenes between a dirt-digger detective and reporter Fletcher (Hugh Grant and Ray (Charlie Hunnam). Ray is the right-hand man and consigliere for Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), the weed lord of England. Because Fletcher is attempting to blackmail Mickey and Ray, he explains the whole story to the theater’s audience by reading the screenplay with Ray.

This is the main issue with this film. Having to rely on this narration to provide a lot of the movie’s context is troubling. However, I will say the way it is done here is better than having an unknown voice over-explanation.

The story as I saw it, was that Mickey wants to sell his vast marijuana growing and distribution empire to Matthew (Jeremy Strong). The reason for selling was unclear and unconvincing. Matthew is a wealthy eccentric Englishman who is intrigued with the possibility of buying this empire for $400M. However, it is a lot of money, and to drive the price down, Matthew engages “Dry Eye” (Henry Golding and a term used for Asians). Dry Eye makes an offer that Mickey scoffs at, but because the offer to sell to Matthew was supposed to be secret, Mickey is now on guard.

Then the story adds complexity because we learn that Matthew and Dry Eye are working some sort of side deal to assist each other in reducing the price, but each plans to screw the other as well.

Adding to this is Fletcher, who, through his detective work, documents all the goings-on between all the parties, which led to the script he reads from. His hopes are to sell the screenplay to Mickey and Ray for $20M so that Mickey and Ray will know all the subversive planning that is going on to drive the price down.

The most fun part of the film is when we have scenes with Coach (Colin Farrell). His group of boys is caught raising havoc in one of Mickey’s underground farms, so he owes Mickey and Ray. The payback to Ray and Mickey are amusing and fun to watch.

Confused? One could be, but this convoluted story is kept on track by the narration scenes. This saves the film from being a total disaster and it also makes it a poorly constructed film.

Anyway, there are lots of side plots and stories in this movie, including Mickey’s wife, Rosalind Pearson (Michelle Dockery). She’s supposed to be the most magnificent woman in the world, but it is only in the eyes of the beholder. There is the newspaper owner who hired Fletcher. There is Lord George (Tom Wu), head dragon, heroin distributor who crosses Mickey.

The movie has lots of twists that are used for creating interest and complexity, and in some cases, it works, but mostly it doesn’t.

McConaughey's role in this makes me wonder. At times he selects fantastic parts like in film Dallas Buyer’s Club and other times, he chooses roles like this one. He does it well enough, but it’s really a role of false, blustery, and cool-man behavior. Hunnam is outstanding as Ray, Mickey’s right-hand man. Grant is oddly compelling as a bad guy. I’ve not seen him recently, and seeing him here was fun. Farrell is brilliant as the Coach of a group of guys and honest to his word. Actually, I liked his character and role the best of all. Dockery is okay as Mickey’s wife and auto builder entrepreneur. Strong is mediocre as the wealthy and odd Englishman who wants to buy Mickey’s empire. Golding is formidable as Dry Eye, a youngish Asian who wants to make his mark. Wu was perfect as the wry old heroin distributor. Ritchie wrote and directed this film, and as I’ve indicated, Guy has little to offer in the realm of filmmaking and his background in music videos is where his talent may lay.

Overall:  Although entertaining at times, being so convoluted the required narration means the story and film needs additional work.

Bridget Jones's Baby

First Hit:  Occasionally funny but generally slow and simply didn’t work.

The very first film of this series, Bridget Jones’s Diary, was fun and it worked in many ways. Being introduced to Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger), a woman who struggles with her weight, is lonely and falls in love with two men. The second was somewhat more of the same; but by this film, the main thing we’ve dropped from the plot is the weight although there are references to weight in the film.

Another constant in the previous films are her two love interests Mark (Colin Firth) and Daniel (Hugh Grant). However, because Grant dropped out of project, he's referenced in a plot device funeral. Here Bridget is successful at her job as producer of a television program. She is celebrating her 43rd birthday and ends of doing it alone in her apartment. She goes to Daniel's funeral and runs into Mark.

A few days later, her coworker Jude (Shirley Henderson) decides to take Bridget to a rock-in-roll festival where she happens to fall into bed with Jack (Patrick Dempsey) and they have a sexual evening. Running into Mark again at a Christening, she has sex with him as well. Having sex with two different men in a short period of time (within a couple weeks of each other), she becomes pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is. That is the plot of this film.

Jones is pregnant, she’s going to keep the baby, she doesn’t know who the father is, and she may lose her job at work. Generally, this plot has a bit of interest but the execution is mediocre. At the end of the film a newspaper article comes up stating that Daniel is still alive, God I hope this doesn't mean there is another film planned.

Zellweger seemed out of place and unengaged in the part. Dempsey seemed to put the most energy into his part although there didn’t seem to be chemistry between him and Zellweger. Firth did well by keeping his stogy, disengaged self in tack. Henderson was delightful and carried her scenes well. Jim Broadbent as Bridget’s dad was his wonderful self and Gemma Jones as Bridget’s mum was good. Emma Thompson co-wrote and also played Bridget’s physician in a wry manner. The other co-writers were Dan Mazer and Helen Fielding. Overall the script was not very strong because it was more rehashed material, although the overall story idea could have been interesting. However, this film is too long and falls apart because of less than engaged acting and lapses of interesting direction by Sharon Maguire. For instance, the scenes of Mark and Jack carrying Jones to the hospital weren’t funny and could have been cut.

Overall:  Despite some funny moments, this film didn’t work and wasn’t worth the price of admission.