Les mercredis du cinéma - Kelly Lambiel
Don't be fooled by their polished language, perfectly tailored suits and cups of tea; they're not here to play games. Beneath their airs of English lords, in a perfectly conducted narrative, drug barons and small-time crooks ally, betray, seek out and, often, find each other. Mordantly written, ingeniously directed and effectively acted, Guy Ritchie makes a remarkable comeback after several disappointments.
A clever mise en abyme
To introduce the plot - which I won't go into here, as the screenplay isn't the most original in cinema history - Guy Ritchie uses, as usual, a narrator. Fletcher, a shady and whimsical journalist played by the kind of Hugh Grant we'd like to see more of, makes Ray (Charlie Hunnam) a proposition the latter would be hard-pressed to refuse. To convince him, he takes charge of the story, stepping into the director's shoes and creating the film we're watching right before our eyes.
Like a crazy, eloquent orchestra conductor, he begins by getting the spectator into shooting condition, and even goes so far as to give the line and have his interlocutor dub one of the scenes from his script. His omniscient point of view enables him to take us from one scene to the next, and to enjoy the pleasure of inventing, modifying and correcting the events he narrates, as the conversation and his interests dictate. We thus discover why he demands the modest sum of twenty million dollars from the henchman of the (very) charming and charismatic Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), head of a (very) lucrative marijuana business.
A breathtaking film
The scenes follow one another at a frenetic pace, alternating between action and scenes of tension, wide shots and close-ups, acceleration and slow motion, leading us from twist to twist. And the grain of sand that can - and does - upset the mechanics at any moment and send our dandies tumbling into incredible situations is never far away. For that, too, is the strength of The Gentlemanis its humor. Sometimes heavy-handed, always incisive, it creates a cleverly measured discrepancy, sometimes tending towards the absurd, rhyming violence with elegance.
Slightly caricatured and often excessive, these thugs, whose verve and allure are so flawless that they border on the ridiculous when they lose face, end up softening us up with a series of "I don't want to be a thief! punchlines and cleverly told fables. It's almost easy to forget that they're all villains and that, while sympathetic, they're far from blameless. Such is the case with the coach, brilliantly played by Colin Farrell, whose righteousness and values are all relative, or even the impeccable Ray, masking countless OCDs and latent aggression beneath his phlegm.
As you can see, the film is well-written, well-directed and well-acted; the images are beautiful, the soundtrack catchy and the characters endearing. Some have called it «reheated», comparing it to Snatch or Scams, crime and botany, But would we blame Burton for doing Burton, Tarantino for doing Tarantino or Lynch for doing Lynch?
Write to the author: kelly.lambiel@leregardlibre.com
Photo credit: © Ascot Elite Entertainment
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