This 97%-Rated British Crime Classic Is Everything Netflix's The Gentlemen Wants To Be

British gangsters are so proper that they can be called professional caretakers, as in taking care of putting a hit on someone.

There is a reason why a character in The Gentlemen, the action TV show which is now streaming on Netflix, makes a parallel between organized crime doers and the British nobility, implying that tradition runs deep in both legal and illegal branches of English society.

That kind of tradition is also present in the stylistic pedigree of the TV series, which draws its influence from a variety of crime-themed works, including its parent film of the same name.

The Guy Ritchie- directed movie, released in 2019, is a gangster comedy which explores the goings-on of the criminal underbelly of London, and has several explicit references to an earlier film, one which has been the trendsetter for the work of director Guy Ritchie and his fellow filmmakers in the genre.

1980’s The Long Good Friday, directed by John Mackenzie from a script by Barrie Keefe, stars the great late tough guy actor Bob Hoskins along with Dame Helen Mirren. It has been called a seminal British gangster movie, with its many story bits, ideas and scenes giving inspiration to an entire generation of filmmakers in the United Kingdom.

Even audiences on social media have been hip to this fact, as evidenced by their reactions to certain episodes in the Guy Ritchie movie, some of which hit a familiar spot.

“Realising that The Gentlemen is essentially Ritchie doing The Long Good Friday … because it not only copies THAT ENDING but has the audacity to keep going for at least another 15 minutes,” wrote Twitter user @ProfondoRobbo.

Indeed, the movie’s plot can ring a few bells. Bob Hoskins’ Harold Shand, a working-class gangster boss keen to go legitimate, is trying to make a deal with the real deal Mafia and get into a project to redevelop the Docklands in London when his criminal empire suddenly starts to shatter.

With his associates killed left and right and his turf literally getting blown up at the hands of unknown assailants, Shand realizes that he may be the next target of the enigmatic hitmen and becomes unhinged, tearing through his own ranks and lashing at his moll wife, played by Mirren, due to suspecting an inside job.

Things grow more and more intense and end on a sour note. In the famous final scene mentioned above, Shand is whisked into a car by his nemeses, revealed to be IRA terrorists, and is driven off at gunpoint, likely to be killed. We guess you can’t really expect a storybook ending for that kind of story.

Now with The Gentlemen paying homage to The Long Good Friday and giving passive nods to its various scenes, it feels like the film has finally got its due, as it was a box office-flop on release and wasn’t quite popular at first. Between the 2019 film being a hit and its sequel series rocking Netflix, we can really see the progeny of 1980’s seminal classic trying to uphold its legacy.

There’s still no beating the original, though.