YMMV / The Gentlemen

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The intervention of the Toddlers who ambushed Mickey's car and thwarted his murder by the Russian gangsters follows a scene where Coach tells their next action will completely wipe their debt toward Mickey. Was it a botched attempt to kill Mickey (wiping the debt by killing their creditor) which failed because the Russians happened to be in the way, or was their ambush intended to protect Mickey (getting back in Mickey's grace by saving him)?
  • Matthew's bodyguards are referred to as "Mossad Crabs". Are they really Mossad agents, or is this nickname an in-joke from Matthew? Or not their In-Universe nickname at all, but just a joke by Fletcher himself? They're introduced by Fletcher during the lengthy Framing Device sequence of the first half of the movie, and Fletcher is regularly mocking Raymond during the whole sequence...
  • Does Coach really think it isn't racially insensitive or worse to call someone a "black cunt," or is he merely trying to defuse a conflict by making that claim?
  • Fletcher's repeated passes at Raymond throughout the film. Genuine flirting, or cheeky provocation? Maybe a bit of both?
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The Toddlers blackmailing Big Dave to force him to stop investigating Mickey's empire? Not funny. The Toddlers kidnapping Big Dave, drugging him, recording him having sex with a pig with "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" as the soundtrack, and then using that as blackmail material? Hilarious! Raymond is a mixture of horrified and awestruck when he sees it, presumably having thought Coach was merely going to threaten him into backing down, there's a definite hint of "who the hell have I got working for me?" in his eyes.
  • Coach's argument with Ernie over whether Primetime was being racist when he called him a "black cunt"; the back-and-forth would be a fairly standard one if applied to a minor instance of racial insensitivity, but the severity of the insult they're arguing over while being perfectly straight-faced makes it hilarious.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Coach only has around 20 minutes of screen time but is a highlight of the movie in the eyes of countless fans and critics. This is due to his Papa Wolf instincts toward his students, Only Sane Man status, moments of compassion toward people he's holding prisoner in two scenes (the Crosses the Line Twice moment with a drugged-up Big Dave and a pig aside), and combat skills.
• Genius Bonus: When Coach tells Raymond that he's putting a hard limit on his gangster activities, he says "No mas." Fight fans will recognize this as a reference to the second Duran vs Leonard boxing match, in which Roberto Duran famously quit the fight by telling the referee, "No mas."
• He's Just Hiding: Laura's death does have some slight ambiguity to it, for the following reasons: 1) It's never mentioned again (not even by Big Dave, who would have been excited to have more fuel for his story); 2) It's in a story being told by Fletcher, who's a bit of an Unreliable Narrator and deliberately trying to spice up the story due to turning it into a screenplay; and 3) not all heroin overdoses are fatal, although her parents' reaction implies that one may have been.
• Idiot Ball: Dry Eye wasting time on trying to rape Mickey's wife right there and then rather than, y'know, actually kidnapping her first. Double points for him actually having witnessed her say his name while on phone with Mickey, so he should have known he was very short on time.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Michael "Mickey" Pearson is the charming ruler of an American marijuana empire, who has clawed his way up from humble beginnings to become one of the most successful crime lords in the business. An utterly respectable businessman who respects his allies and gives them all more than ample compensation for their services, Mickey has evaded all attempts by law enforcement and other criminal gangs to locate his pot farms through bribery and hiding in plain sight. When he seems to sell his million-dollar enterprise and retire in luxury, Mickey dances out of reach of the many slimy and violent crooks he comes up against, before ultimately outwitting the treacherous Matthew Berger, taking out the psychotic Dry Eye and reestablishing himself to remain in the crime game. With a deep love for his wife, a genuine friendship with his right-hand, and a swaggering ruthlessness to every situation he faces, Mickey ends the film in triumph over all those who sought to oppose him, firmly proving to all that he is "the king of the jungle."
  • Raymond Smith is Mickey’s loyal and efficient chief enforcer in the cannabis business who both Mickey’s trust and faith in proves utterly indispensable. Questioned by the greedy and ambitious Fletcher whose learned of things he shouldn’t know, Raymond constantly snowballs him while also cooking him steaks and learning of the different places Fletcher has hidden evidence and his findings. This is while Raymond also lets Fletcher snoop in his house and lets him think he’s getting away with it too. Rescuing the teenager Laura Pressfield from a drug den, Raymond has his guys track down thieves who took pictures with their phones of an addict who’s accidentally killed on the scene and when they threaten Raymond with knives in his attempt to bribe them, he drops the niceties and pretenses to threaten them with a concealed submachine gun while successfully covering up the scene. He also continues to protect Mickey from exposure and other assassins and eventually when Fletcher initially escapes, Raymond tracks him down and successfully recaptures him to guarantee he’s out of the picture for good.
• Misaimed Fandom: Several cinema accounts have uploaded Mickey's "one rule in the jungle" line, building it up as a badass moment. This despite it not actually happening and merely being a parodic fabrication by Fletcher which is immediately pointed out as such by Raymond.
• Moral Event Horizon
  • Dry Eyes' Attempted Rape of Rosalind.
  • While we already know everything that Matthew has done at that point, seeing just how much he's trying to gouge the price for Mickey and how smug he is about it make it a lot harder to feel sorry for him once Mickey describes his revenge.
  • Arguably the reveal that Fletcher outright sold out Mickey to the Russian mob to get him killed, if not the reveal that he was behind the botched assassination of Mickey as shown in the beginning, and has been trying to make still more money out of the deal.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The trope is literally name-checked when Coach and Raymond discuss the video of Big Dave fucking the pig, which neither of them can un-see.
  • Dry Eye's Attempted Rape of Rosalind. Good thing Mickey arrived just in time....