Headscratchers / The Gentlemen

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• Did the Toddlers actually mean to kill Mickey and inadvertently wound up saving him from the Russians, or did they somehow find out about the Russians in advance and so meant to save Mickey all along, to get Coach out of his deal?
  • Guessing trying to kill him given they sprayed an assault rifle on full auto in his direction and just happened to hit the Russians instead of Michael, who will likely be too happy they inadvertently saved him to take revenge.
  • On the other hand, though, they didn't start shooting right after they yanked the door open, and, whether intentionally or not, didn't fire until Mickey had ducked down.
  • Or they went there to kill him, saw the Russians about to kill him, and figure saving his life will wipe the debt clean just as easily as ending it.
• For that matter, where did the Toddlers get assault rifles? They seemed to be more about brawling, robbery and lower level mayhem than deadly weapons.
  • The Toddlers have some criminal connections (given how Phuc went to them for the robbery in the first place), and it's implied that most to all of them are former gang members who had "hard lives" before coming into contact with Coach. Perhaps they got the two assault rifles they use in the climax through one of those connections. That could have also let them find out about the hit on Mickey in the first place, assuming it wasn't Mickey himself who they try to kill.
    • After Fletcher reveals the involvement of the Russians to Raymond, Raymond is seen asking Coach for one more favor.
• How did Laura die of a heroin overdose days after leaving the drug den (and explicitly not taking anything with her)? Her parents would have presumably been on the lookout to prevent drugs from being brought to their home when she was detoxing. Is the whole scene meant to be another example of Fletcher being an Unreliable Narrator trying to spice up the story he's telling?
  • Never underestimate the naivete of the upper class or the determination of an addict in withdrawal. Her parents just wanted her home, not in rehab. If their main concern was her drug use, she would've been shipped off to the nearest rehabilitation facility posthaste. They probably figured that it was the people around her convincing her to do the drugs, not her actual desire.
• When Fletcher returns to Raymond to demand his money, the latter is cooking a large steak on the barbecue. Is it beef, or the literal pound of flesh that Mickey demanded (and presumably got) from Matthew?
  • Due to Raymond's particular idiosyncrasies about human filth, it was probably another steak.
  • It can't have been from Matthew's body, Michael's meeting with Matthew and Raymond's meeting with Fletcher were happening at the same time. "They 're gonna get Michael when he comes out of his meeting at the fish market, and they are coming here."
• Why would Fletcher need to visit his insurance between blackmailing Raymond and the deadline, other than the film needing him to do it so he can be foiled?
  • With a plan that heavily dependent in failsafes, you'd want to be absolutely sure that they're all exactly where you last left them, and that nobody has tampered with them.
  • There is a catch: Matthew is clearly very smart, albeit ridiculous, so why hasn't he made many more copies ?
• Why wouldn't Matthew just cancel the money that Michael extorted from when he got back to safety?
  • Matthew sent Mickey the money via wire transfer. Wire transfers are much more complicated to reverse than most peer-to-peer payment app transfers, like Venmo or Zelle, to the point that they're more often than not considered permanent transactions. He didn't because he couldn't. If he wanted to get the money back, he'd have to do so through Michael and, considering their current business relationship, that wouldn't be a simple endeavor.
• So in the end it was possible for Mickey to have his cake and eat it too - that is, receive the money for the sale without actually selling anything. I now wonder just what had prevented him from doing the same even before he learnt about Matthew's designs. "Honor code"? Reputational damage?
  • Mickey starts the movie genuinely wanting to sell off his buisiness and retire. He's also someone who believes in dealing straight and treating others with respect and expecting to be treated the same in return. Matthew approached him first about buying Mickey's operation so he turns down Dry Eye when Dry Eye comes with his own offer. If that's how far things went, then the deal would have been completed peacefully. However, it turns out Matthew and Dry Eye were working together to try and drive down the value of Mickey's business. If the two had tried to drive a hard financial bargain and negotiate the price down, Mickey would have been amenable. However, they used violence and threat of death to try and scare Mickey into a lower price. In the process, they hurt and killed Mickey's employees and Dry Eye even tried to rape Mickey's wife. The sexual assault was what enraged Mickey, leading to him keep his empire and demanding money from Matthew as restitution.