THE GENTLEMEN (TV)****

Guy Ritchie comes to our TV screens with a series that is a highly satisfying greatest hits mash-up of his mockney gangster films, like LOCK, STOCK to SNATCH. All the classic Ritchie tropes are here. Colourful East End gangsters in well-cut tweed. Thick as mince posh boys snorting coke getting rinsed by aforementioned gangsters. A cool, smart, stunning woman at the  centre of it all. Vinnie Jones in a cameo role. Illegal boxing. Travellers. Ganga farms on country estates. And a handsome protagonist who spends most of his time sorting out other people's bullshit. Oh and let's not forget the plotting - so complex, so full of double-crosses - and yet all resolving beautifully in the final act.

The good news is that while this show is set in the same world as Ritchie's feature film of the same name, you don't have to have watched that to enjoy the TV show. It opens cold establishing the bona fides of our hero, Eddie Horniman. He's a British soldier serving with UN Peacekeepers - and his skill for refined violence and defraying anger are going to come in handy. Eddie is played with suave cool by Theo James, of White Lotus season two fame. James treats this is a James Bond audition and is highly convincing in the role. 

The action begins when Eddie's father dies, leaving his title and estate to Eddie rather than his feckless big brother Freddy. Turns out daddy was leasing out the estate to Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone) to grow industrial quantities of ganga, managed by Bobby's daughter Suzy (Kaya Scodelario). Oh, and Freddy is in hock to some mean Liverpudlian cocaine-dealers who funded his drug-induced gambling binge.  Meanwhile, Giancarlo Esposito plays a mega rich American dealer who is keen to take over the business, and Eddie just wants to clear his brother's debts and get his estate back.  The series arc is effectively the process of Eddie discovering that as much as he says he wants out, he's actually pretty good at being a gangster. 

I really enjoyed this show. The lavish country house settings are beautifully filmed. The characters are compelling, the costumes stunning and the music propels the action scenes. Ritchie knows exactly what he's doing with this material, and while the the tropes are familiar, it still felt fresh and I was genuinely struggling to figure out how it would all resolve. I absolutely loved the final final final twist and really hope we get a second season.

Of the performances, Daniel Ings is the break-out star, with an instantly iconic chicken scene - you'll know what I mean when you see it - at the end of the first episode. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Vinnie Jones deliver a modulated performance, rather than just playing a pastiche of his bad boy football persona. I can't believe I am saying this, but it's Jones who delivers the one genuinely emotional scene in the whole series. Kudos to him.

THE GENTLEMEN is an eight episode miniseries available on Netflix.

MR MALCOLM'S LIST**

MR MALCOLM'S LIST is a regency Austen-esque self-proclaimed rom-com that is actually devoid of sexual chemistry or satire.  It sits upon the screen like a dead fish, plodding faithfully to its entirely predictable conclusion, under-written and limply acted. The only exception to this turgid tedium is Zawe Ashton's arrogant but vulnerable Miss Thistlewaite, who drives the plot and the only real attempt at comedy.  

The plot, such as it is, is out of a Sweet Valley High novel. Mr Malcolm is a fastidious but rich bachelor - think Mr Darcy.  He snubs the superficial Miss Thistlewaite so she decides to lure him into falling in love with her friend Selina, before Selina rejects HIM with her own list. The problem is that Selina and Malcolm are actually ideal for each other, and Miss T is also exposed as a snob for not accepting the courtship of Captain Ossory, who is beneath her in the social pecking order. 

I love Austen. I love Austen inspired rom-coms both high-brow and low. I love Bridgerton!  So I should be the ideal audience for this film.  I was in its corner. The indie costume drama is a rare thing and one cast in a refreshingly colour-blind way even rarer. I sat down to watch it hoping it would be brilliant.  I suspect the faults lie in two directions, as director Emma Holly Jones conjures up some lovely use of landscape and interior.  First of all, Suzanne Allain's script, based on her own novel, is very dull indeed. Second of all, Freida Pinto is hopelessly miscast and/or underwritten as Selina. She is meant to be independent of mind and a grounded, vital foil for Mr Malcolm (or so I infer).  Here she comes across as meek and milquetoast as Fanny Price.  Plus there was zero chemistry between her and Sope Dirisu's Mr Malcolm. I couldn't have cared less whether they got together or not. We get further with Theo James's Captain Ossory romancing Zawe Ashton's Miss Thistlewaite but that story isn't given time to breathe. Also, not to sound ageist, but I don't understand why a film about two young twenty-somethings is cast with late thirty-somethings?

Overall, one to avoid.

MR MALCOLM'S LIST is rated PG and has a running time of 117 minutes. It is available to rent and own.

INSURGENT

You can listen to a podcast review of this film below:

INSURGENT is the second instalment of the Divergent series based on the popular young adult novels by Veronica Roth.  I didn't review the first film even though I did see it on DVD. The movie just struck me as so derivative and banal and mechanical that I just couldn't be bothered. There wasn't anything bad about it per se - it was slick and well-acted for the most part - but there wasn't anything to get me excited either.  Sadly, that characterisation applies to the sequel too. It's well-made, well-acted for the most part, and full of great CGI action set-pieces.  But it's so mechanical, so derivative and so predictable that I found myself watching it in a rather mechanical way - utterly detached from the emotional journey.

Random DVD Round-Up - DIVERGENT

DIVERGENT. Hmmm. What to say about this film, based on a wildly successful set of Young Adult books by Veronica Roth which I have not read, and which from the look of this film are unfortunate enough to sit in the shadow of THE HUNGER GAMES. To wit, we are in an American dystopian future with people oppressed by some kind of self-elected elite.  Our plucky heroine, Tris (Shailene Woodley - THE DESCENDANTS) is much like Katniss, someone of unusual talent and resourcefulness competing in a a kind of martial game to break through into some kind of better future.  In this case, the citizens of the world are categorised by their dominant personality trait. Tris, in true Harry Potter style, sits uneasily across the thresholds and opts to leave her parents 'house' Abnegation for Dauntless, while her brother opts for the Erudites. What follows are training challenges that play out much like Games, and a good dose of romance with the enigmatic but hot "Four" (Theo James).  Naturally, Tris hooks up with a bunch of the least promising trainees, and guess what, they eventually come out on top after banding together and being nice. Ultimately there is some kind of showdown in the first strike in a civil war between the factions.  There's meant to be a hugely emotional moment but at this point I was so numb to it, it floated right by me. I just didn't care about the people, the fight, and the whole movie felt like a pale shadow of HUNGER GAMES.  Maybe that's unfair - maybe if I'd seen or read Divergent first I wouldn't have felt so turned off. But it is what it is.  Shailene Woodley is a great actress but somehow a soupy romance with Four plays far more simplistically than the complex triangle comprised by political exigency in THE HUNGER GAMES.  Or maybe it's because THE HUNGER GAMES pushes the dystopian fantasy farther and crazier - Effie Trinket, I'm looking at you - or that it's satire on modern pop culture is more biting.  Whatever the reason, DIVERGENT feels very, very thin by comparison.  

DIVERGENT has a running time of 139 minutes and is rated PG-13. It is available to rent and own in most countries. It opens in China on September 8th.