Popcorn Zombies

By Michael Momper It's a rare art form nowadays for an action movie to be both viscerally entertaining and intelligently crafted. But I knew that The Gentlemen would deliver the goods just based upon writer/director Guy Ritchie's name on the poster. Some writers just have that kind of power. Ritchie is a master craftsman in the cockney action genre, but this is only his third movie in the genre. His masterpiece Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, burst onto the scene in 1997 and immediately garnered him a reputation. Snatch followed in 2000 to similar acclaim, but since then he hasn't returned to the genre with any original entries. He wrote and directed both of these movies, and his signature stylistic violence, hilarious and profane dialogue, and swaggering goofy characters were on full display. We have been waiting twenty years for his return to the genre. Like the John Wick franchise, his cockney gangster flicks are a welcome reprieve from every day life...