Netflix has released season two of Guy Ritchie's gangster drama The Gentlemen, which earned a five-out-of-five star rating from reviewer Christopher Stevens.
The eight-hour series continues the story of Eddie, the 13th Duke of Halstead, played by Theo James. The former Army captain turned marijuana kingpin plans to corner the European weed supply, manipulate the government into decriminalising cannabis, and get rich by going legit.
Eddie tells his gamekeeper and occasional hitman Geoff, played by Vinnie Jones, that he wants "all the land down to the coast" back. His goal is to restore the family estates to the glory of centuries past, a plan that will require a trillion pounds or two given his ancestral home is a good 25 miles from the sea. The Cotswold stately pile Badminton House doubles as the Halstead family home.
Drugs baron Bobby Glass, played by Ray Winstone, remains incarcerated at HMP Leyhill serving a ten-year sentence for tax fraud. He spends his days in a luxurious sauna overlooking the river or in a hot tub with an "expresso" and a Cuban cigar, attended by two prison officers who fetch him phones, snacks or anything his criminal heart desires.
Stevens noted that under the Labour government's drive to empty the jails, Bobby should be sent home after 30 months. Because he was imprisoned at the start of the first series in 2024, the reviewer joked he must be due for his discharge papers, questioning whether Bobby could find a gold-plated hot tub on the outside like the one Eddie, who is not short of a bob or two, could afford.
New arrivals and aristocratic guests
The second season introduces new characters, including Aisha, played by Maya Jama. Ritchie helps viewers identify the additions and understand the backstory by scrawling captions and plot notes across the screen in yellow marker pen.
One note explains the Duke's favourite breakfast, kedgeree, describing it as an "Anglo-Indian dish dating from the 1800s, combining rice, fish, egg and curry".
Refusing the treat, a new character named Lord Hawthorne declares: "It is impossible to trump the kipper." Played by Hugh Bonneville, the Conservative peer and scion of the aristocracy is introduced as a tubby figure wearing a flannel shirt, a tweed waistcoat and a gold signet ring on his little finger.
Stevens compared the role to Bonneville's Lord Grantham, noting both characters possess an intellect that glows with the faint glimmer of a five-watt bulb, and joked that the actor might be getting typecast. However, Lord Hawthorne is not a decent or moral fellow, but rather someone with a taste for 72-hour sex parties and rough, young men.
Also attending a shooting party at the estate is Cico Maldini, alias Gino de Bambi, played by Michele Morrone. The boisterous Mafioso has a taste for flamboyant gifts and presents his girlfriend with a tiger, though he does not realise she is not a cat person until she calls it "a stripy lion".
During the shoot, Cico is knocked out by a plummeting partridge. Stevens described the broad comedy as almost "Carry On Cartel", noting that toffs, wideboys, drug lords and jokes feature amid the capers and blaggery.
Class satire and ultra-violence
The reviewer noted that Ritchie's trademark style dates back nearly 30 years to Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. The director blends one-liners, bad puns and slapstick with ultra-violence treated as cartoon fun, while injecting occasional stabs of genuine class satire.
Stevens highlighted the execution of a Lincoln's Inn lawyer, whose head is placed in a clear plastic bag that fills with blood before his brains are blown out at his desk. Rather than taking the hurly-burly seriously, Geoff tut-tuts and the Duke murmurs an urbane quip. The mess is then tidied away as easily as a butler emptying a drawing room ashtray of cigar butts after a late night.
While Stevens likened James's performance to the Roger Moore school of eyebrows-only acting, he said Kaya Scodelario provides the real gristle of the show. She plays Susie Glass, Bobby's daughter and the brains behind the Duke's dope empire, described as the villain you would least want to cross.
Surveying the fools and fakers blasting birdlife out of the sky with antique shotguns, the Duke observes: "Shoots are never about the killing, they're always about the deal-making. It's an alibi to fuse a collection of disparate rogues." Stevens concluded that the series was a real blast and well worth eight hours of anyone's time.
