Gentlemanly warfare: Guy Ritchie’s gangster etiquette in 8 films and 2 TV shows

Guy Ritchie’s two-and-a-half-decade career as a filmmaker has been a bit of a mixed bag, and that’s being generous. No one really wants to be pigeonholed, but the fact is that some artists are especially suited to one particular genre, and they do their best work when they stick to it. For Ritchie, that genre is quintessentially British crime capers. Since launching his career with the one-two punch that was Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch (released in 1998 and 2000), Ritchie has dabbled in rom-coms (or whatever Swept Away was supposed to be), period pieces, mysteries, and even a live-action Disney remake. His most recent film, The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare, is part war film, part spy thriller. But none of those projects (including his latest) have managed to match the entertainment value of his sporadic jaunts through London’s criminal underworld.

One of the reasons why it’s so much fun to visit the worlds Ritchie takes us to in films like RocknRolla, Wrath Of Man, and The Gentlemen (as well as the recent Netflix spinoff) is that he populates them with plenty of interesting characters. Ritchie’s “Mockney” protagonists may be gangsters, crime lords, swindlers, or petty thieves, but we tend to like them and root for them, because they have a code. Those who keep to their code are the most likely to survive to the final credits; those who don’t often come to violent ends. As evidenced by the number of recent Ritchie titles referencing “gentlemen,” he seems to have his own ideas about what constitutes etiquette and civility, and they have nothing to do with the station into which his characters were born.

With that in mind, we thought it would be interesting to look back at Ritchie’s crime oeuvre and put together a guide to gangster etiquette according to Guy Ritchie. For the sake of expediency, we’re excluding his broader fare like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., as well as period films like King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword, and Aladdin, but we are throwing in Sherlock Holmes and its sequel. Because hey, these rules may be inspired by Ritchie’s films, but we’re the ones making them up as we go.

Rule #1: Set a good example for the next generation

In Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels we meet Big Chris, played by Vinnie Jones in his big-screen debut. It’s his job to settle debts for his boss, “Hatchet” Harry Lonsdale (P. H. Moriarty), and he takes it very seriously. “The only thing he cares more about than settling debts,” we’re told, “is his son and heir, Little Chris.” Big Chris brings the lad along on his jobs and into places where no child should be, but the one thing he won’t tolerate is swearing (not even from Little Chris himself). His perspective as a father comes in handy when he pays a visit to former-gangster-turned-bar-owner J.D. (played by Sting), and offers him a chance to settle his own kid’s debt by giving up his bar. It also proves to be a liability when a small-time thief takes Little Chris hostage, but getting in between a father and his son turns out to be the last mistake he’ll ever make.