If you’re thinking of seeing the new Guy Ritchie movie, The Gentlemen, then do yourself a favour and book your tickets now. But a warning – if you’re going to do it for date night, see the movie first. You’ll have plenty to talk about over dinner and won’t be sitting through the movie with a belly full of food and a bladder full of booze while you try to concentrate on what comes next!

Written and directed by Ritchie, from a story he wrote in conjunction with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, I had no idea what to expect from The Gentlemen – other than that it should be entertaining, and probably a bit violent – but I wasn’t disappointed.

The first 20 minutes required a little bit of work – I wasn’t quite sure what was going on or who was who and so had to focus to get my head around the characters and how they inter-related, but after a while I settled into the ‘story-within-a-story’ concept and the bits started to fall into place.

This is a movie which helps actors break out from prior roles. In particular, I think Hugh Grant, Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley from Downton Abbey and Alice Fletcher from Godless) and Henry Golding (Nick Young from Crazy Rich Asians and a presenter on BBC’s The Travel Show) would have had great fun trying out their different dialects, clothing styles and new personalities as they developed their roles. And that was something I really enjoyed about this movie – the way all the actors seemed to enjoy their roles, to relish in them. If the actors aren’t making it look like work, then the whole package is more fun to watch!

A few other things I enjoyed about The Gentlemen: