Parents' Guide to The Gentlemen

Guy Ritchie's crime comedy won't be making any "best family movies of the year" lists, which may be the best marketing it can get. After a decade spent making more commercial films like Aladdin, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and Sherlock Holmes, Ritchie returns to his core skill set: telling violent stories about thugs, criminals, fighters, and the underworld. He's clearly been feeling pent up, as it all comes out (literally) guns blazing. The Gentlemen has a clever concept, snappy dialogue, creative characters, and stupendous style. In a meta turn, it's delivered as a mystery narrated by a sleazy private investigator named Fletcher (Grant has rarely been better), who's turned the events into a script and peppers his "pitch" of sorts with filmmaking references.

It's a whirlwind of moving parts, but the audience never gets lost in the tornado of events. The characters are all on the wrong side of the law and life, and adults can appreciate the film for what it is and see that crime doesn't pay, even when it does. That said, younger viewers may buy into the movie's pro-weed, pro-gun attitude. While Mickey says that his "hands are dirty," the ultimate takeaway is that coming up with an orderly, principled pot-farm business wasn't just OK, it was shrewd. In another situation, Rosalind nags her husband about having a gun because it's a ticket to prison; later, she's only able to protect herself with his gun, but is still woefully unprepared. Both of these suggest that following the law can hold you back or even hurt you -- and if you're smart, you work around it. They say a gentleman always remembers, but when it comes to picking up trains of thought from pop culture, so do kids.