THE GENTLEMEN

Once upon a time this would have been called 'post-modern'; now it's just smarter than the smartest kid on the block and really terrific fun. It's a Guy Ritchie picture set in the heart of Guy Ritchie territory and it's like an amalgam of all the best Guy Ritchie pictures strung together. It starts with a killing...or does it and if so, who's been killed, before leaping forward to what's basically a pitch for the film we're watching being made by a very dodgy private investigator, (a never better Hugh Grant), to a well-heeled gangster, (Charlie Hunnam).

Part of the fun is the way Ritchie subverts our expectations, not just in the torturous way he tells his tale, but in the casting. I mean, who would have imagined 'Downton Abbey's' Lady Mary, (a superb Michelle Dockery), playing a foul-mouthed Cockney moll or indeed Grant's terrific turn as a blackmailing scumbag. The rest of the cast can be taken as read; for the Ameriican market, Matthew McConaughey as Mr Big, Colin Farrell, (brilliant as 'The Coach'). Eddie Marsan as a sleazy newspaper magnate, 'Succession's Jeremy Strong as one of McConaughey's rivals and Henry Golding, getting better with every picture, as a small-time Asian gangster with big ideas.

They are all wonderful, spouting some of the best dialogue of any Guy Ritchie film but then perhaps they had to be since the plot isn't that easy to follow, (everybody seems to be double-crossing everyone else), making this the only Guy Ritchie movie you will almost certainly need to see twice. I loved every fantastic, foul-mouthed minute.