I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would - I have an instinctive wariness of Guy Ritchie, but there's plenty of movie stars, story, great actors, funky music, and twists, and Ritchie still has verve behind the camera. The dialogue is enjoyable to listen to and most of all Hugh Grant is having the time of his life as a gay gossipy investigator who narrates the tale - his good mood was presumably helped by the fact most of his scenes are shot in one location. Jeremy Strong and Eddie Marsden were also excellent and there was decent work from the others.
Gripe time: there's an unpleasant strand of white supremacy through the film, with its white establishment figures banding together to keep out the Jews and Chinese who are disloyal and push heroin, sympathetic depiction of aristocracy, and depiction of Irish and blacks being useful if they are hired hands. I really didn't like the attempted rape scene it wasn't necessary.
Some character aspects could have been more thoroughly explored- why was Colin Farrell so obliging? I mean to do one nice thing sure but he kept coming back to get the heroes out of trouble. Why was Charlie H so loyal to his boss? Isn't the Russian mafia dude still going to want to come after them at the end? Did Matthew McC get the money?
I did like the nods to The Long Good Friday.
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