Guy Ritchie’s filmography has peaked, cratered, and revamped enough times that there isn’t an obvious trend. He hasn’t had a real “comeback,” but he’s made too many slick, entertaining genre throwbacks in the post-Covid era to be “washed.” Ritchie’s been stuck in “franchise hell” for the better part of a decade before 2020’s The Gentlemen returned to the fast and funny London-based crime of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. While this led to a brief renaissance where Ritchie crafted 1970s-style flicks in the vein of Don Siegel or John Frankenheimer, his determination to debut at least one new film each year has had diminishing results. This year alone Ritchie made the incomprehensible caper In the Grey, dumped in theaters after it reportedly failed to complete reshoots, but it’s an improvement over 2025’s unwatchable Indiana Jones knock-off Fountain of Youth.
The premise of 2020’s The Gentlemen is a fun riff on the gangster genre that had a unique perspective; the legalization of marijuana has altered what a criminal empire looks like, and The Gentlemen has presented the world of drug-smuggling as a family epic in the vein of Succession. It also struck the right balance between laughing and lionizing at a dastardly crew of kingpins, fences, hired hands, and government liaisons. Ritchie likes to make fun of the ridiculous indulgences afforded to those with generational power, but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t enjoyed opulent mansions, tailored suits, and the most vehicular product placement since Michael Bay’s Transformers.
The expansion of a hit film into a series has produced some of the biggest misfires within the “prestige” era of television, with this year’s Amadeus and Cape Fear just two of the most egregious recent examples. The difference with Netflix’s The Gentlemen is that it’s not based on an all-time classic; the 2020 film is a blast, but it’s not even one of Ritchie’s best. There was reason to take another stab at the material because Ritchie had limitations on the film that he was able to pioneer with the expanded budget of a Netflix series. It’s also one of the few instances of a reboot where the original creator was involved. The television series version of Snatch was a bust because it was another Ritchie imitator, whereas The Gentlemen series is likely closer to what the writer/director’s original vision was than the cut of the film that played in theaters.
The first season of The Gentlemen was an entertaining binge-watch that played the streaming show card of mostly being table-setting. Theo James’ Eddie Horniman is closer to Michael Corleone than any of the film’s cast, and his transition from Royal Army veteran to the heir to a criminal empire made the case that a second season where he went full anti-hero would be even more satisfying. Season 2 of The Gentlemen is a step-up because Ritchie isn’t trying to pretend like the story makes sense; even when using clever floating numerals and animated graphs to break down the profit margins for two different crime families, the show is at its most pure when it can color outside the margins.
Season 2 of The Gentlemen has distinct episodes in a way that most streaming shows don’t. Having a writer’s room was one of the best things to ever happen to Ritchie because he needed to have characters who didn’t have the same pointed, high-minded speaking style; even if every other line in The Gentlemen is a sharp comeback or a crude innuendo, the second season was written to the strengths of its cast. Ritchie’s never been the best when it comes to female characters, but Kaya Scodelario is a standout in the role of Susie Glass, the representative of a different syndicate who formed a terse alliance with Eddie. That the two attractive, competent leads of the show aren’t romantically involved isn’t just a subversion of expectations, but a reason for Ritchie to go down different detours following the supporting cast. There’s a significant portion of Season 2 with Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville as a corrupt member of the House of Lords that makes Ritchie’s incomprehensible political leanings more irreverent.
Ritchie might not be actively trying to provoke backlash in the same way that Taylor Sheridan has, but Season 2 of The Gentlemen has a perspective on the modernization of status that fits into the post-Brexit era of British crime cinema. Titles, manors, and deals are traded around like game pieces, something that Ritchie’s attuned to with the frequent imagery of chess players, gambling terms, and shooting sports in which business is done. Everything is valuable and nobody owns anything, yet the stakes are higher in a season with a significantly higher body count. Some of Ritchie’s last few films have tried patience with the snippy one-liners and cultural references used to undercut any legitimate emotion, so it’s a nice surprise when The Gentlemen can take itself seriously. There’s a particularly brutal sequence at the end of the episode "The Bells of San Domenico" where the tourists' conception of Britain is compromised with a grim dose of reality. Even when the specifics of the money-laundering arrangements and collateral capital require a flowchart to comprehend, The Gentlemen has a primal understanding of what motivates its characters to continue within this shady line-of-work.
The satisfaction of The Gentlemen is that the status quo is frequently changed, but the season isn’t dependent on a major reveal. Resting the success of a streaming release on just one moment that’ll be spoiled within a day of its premiere is a poor strategy that may explain why so many of Netflix’s returning shows have dipped in viewership in their second seasons. The Gentlemen has something strange or at least interesting on a routine basis, and that these moments are thrown together haphazardly is part of the charm.