In this age of familiar IP and franchises, it’s hardly shocking for Netflix’s latest action show to be based on a movie. Especially as it’s a movie by iconic director Guy Ritchie. What is a little surprising, though, is that the series in question is based on The Gentlemen, a film that practically nobody saw.
Released in 2019, The Gentlemen starred a stacked A-list cast, including Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Grant, Henry Golding, Michelle Dockery, and Charlie Hunnam, but it still only managed a so-so $115.2 million at the box office. The film starred McConaughey as a drug lord preparing to sell his marijuana empire. The twist? His empire is funded by weed factories situated on the estates of English aristocrats, who are all to happy to accept his hush money in exchange for lending their land.
So how does Netflix’s The Gentlemen TV series connect to the movie?
Do I need to see the movie to watch The Gentlemen TV show?
In short, no, go ahead and knock yourself out. Netflix users can feel free to dive right into the series without any prior knowledge of The Gentlemen film. And they certainly have done, considering that the show became the top-rated TV title on the streamer in the week following its release on March 8.
The reason you don’t need to be familiar with The Gentlemen movie to watch The Gentlemen TV show is that the two do not share a continuity, nor do any characters or actors from the film return for the streaming production. Instead, they simply have a similar core premise which is retold in two very different ways.
Although it’s officially been called a spinoff, the Netflix show actually calls back to the good old days of the 1980s and 1990s when various movies would get TV reimaginings that simply retold the film’s story rather than attempting to build out some kind of cinematic universe. Case in point, 2000’s Lock, Stock…, which did exactly that for Ritchie’s own Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.
In contrast to the film, then, Netflix’s The Gentlemen follows Eddie Horniman (Theo James), the estranged son of an English aristocrat who is surprised to find he inherits his father’s title of Duke of Halstead and the family’s enormous country estate upon his old man’s death, due to his older brother’s drug problems. When he returns home, things get even more shocking when he learns his father allowed his land to be used by weed king Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone), whose criminal organization is now being run by his daughter, Susie (Kaya Scoelario), while he’s in jail.
With a 71% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, The Gentlemen show hasn’t exactly been a raving success, as the movie version came away with 75% on the same site. Nevetherless, if Ritchie’s distinctive brand of cockney criminal antics laced with light-hearted humor is your thing then you won’t be left disappointed, whether you’ve seen the movie or not.
