"I got into film-making because I was interested in making entertaining movies, which I felt there was a lack of"
About this Quote
Ritchie frames his origin story like a small act of rebellion: not a calling, not an art-school epiphany, but an itch to fix a market failure. “Entertaining” is doing a lot of work here. It’s a word that sounds humble and audience-friendly, yet it quietly draws a line in the sand against the kind of prestige cinema that asks viewers to admire it more than enjoy it. The subtext is a wager: craft, swagger, and momentum can matter as much as moral gravity.
The second clause, “which I felt there was a lack of,” is the tell. It’s subjective, almost petulant, and that’s why it lands. Ritchie isn’t claiming the industry literally stopped producing fun; he’s saying the fun on offer wasn’t the fun he wanted: faster, cheekier, more street-level, more combustible. It’s the sensibility that later shows up in his films’ machine-gun banter, locked-in rhythms, and carnival of hustlers and hard men. His “entertainment” is not comfort; it’s velocity.
Context matters: Ritchie emerges in a late-90s British moment where post-Thatcher grit meets pop gloss, when “Cool Britannia” turned laddishness into a brand and crime capers became an export. His quote positions him as both product and critic of that era: a director arguing that the audience’s appetite is being underestimated, that style can be substance when it’s tuned to the crowd’s pulse. It’s also a subtle flex: if the deficit is real, then he’s the supply.
The second clause, “which I felt there was a lack of,” is the tell. It’s subjective, almost petulant, and that’s why it lands. Ritchie isn’t claiming the industry literally stopped producing fun; he’s saying the fun on offer wasn’t the fun he wanted: faster, cheekier, more street-level, more combustible. It’s the sensibility that later shows up in his films’ machine-gun banter, locked-in rhythms, and carnival of hustlers and hard men. His “entertainment” is not comfort; it’s velocity.
Context matters: Ritchie emerges in a late-90s British moment where post-Thatcher grit meets pop gloss, when “Cool Britannia” turned laddishness into a brand and crime capers became an export. His quote positions him as both product and critic of that era: a director arguing that the audience’s appetite is being underestimated, that style can be substance when it’s tuned to the crowd’s pulse. It’s also a subtle flex: if the deficit is real, then he’s the supply.
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
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