Guy Ritchie pumps out movies at a rate that’s hard not to admire, and as is to be expected with so much output, the level of quality is not consistent. There’s a simple equation: for every dogshit movie (live-action Aladdin), you get a solid “‘ello guvnah” caper (The Gentlemen) and an all-time great genre classic (Wrath of Man). It’s a more than fair trade, helped into acceptance by the fact that the stinker of the bunch is usually pretty easy to spot and therefore avoid. And honestly, if you expected anything more than an unwatchable nightmare from Aladdin, that’s on you.
His latest, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare falls squarely into the middle category, and it’s the rare Ritchie film that’s based on a true story. You see, back in 1940, Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive, a covert ops group that relied upon espionage, sabotage, and other unseemly tactics to help give the Allied forces an edge in Nazi-occupied territory. The organization’s existence was top secret at the time, and was only discovered via Churchill’s private documents long after the war was over. Ministry focuses on one operation in particular: Operation Postmaster. In this heavily fictionalized version of the mission, the SOE was tasked with disabling enemy supply ships and helping to clear a prominent Allied supply route of dangerous U-boats. And wouldn’t you know it? The gang hired to do the job are a bunch of ragtag cartoon character people who quip, fight, and genuinely enjoy being invincible scamps.
The film is split into to two narratives. One follows Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) and Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson) as they assemble their team and carry out a variety of violent tasks on land and at sea. The adjacent narrative follows actress-turned-spy Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González) and fellow spy Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) as they work to obtain important information from proud Nazi, Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger).
When the film focuses on wisecracking Cavill and Ritchson, it’s a lot of fun. Cavill is an actor who, despite his considerable talents, isn’t always well cast, and as such he rarely gets a chance to be silly. It’s a shame because even though he’s still my favorite Superman, he’s best when he gets to be a bit goofy. When his baby blues are tweaked into “crazy eyes” it’s hard not to go along with his manic energy. Ritchson, a natural superstar, is equally silly here, a mode punctuated by some of the most brutal knife-work one is apt to see on screen. When he gets to stabbin’ it’s quite gruesome. It would be hard to watch if it weren’t so damn funny.
“My killing days are over,” he proclaims just a few minutes before killing more people than I can count. Classic Ritchie schtick, done well.
It’s when the film follows the second group of protagonists that it sputters. This isn’t to say that these scenes are outright bad, just that they lack the energy of the movie’s better half, and aren’t interesting enough in a plot sense to keep one from wondering when we’ll get back to the action. It’s also hard to divorce these segments from superior material in another regard: it all plays as a Diet Inglourious Basterds, which isn’t helped by the fact that it prominently features one of the Basterds (Schweiger) behaving quite similarly to his Tarantino counterpart.
Still, it’s all pretty and breezy enough to be fun, despite being uneven and not nearly as compelling as the true story likely is. In fact, the highest compliment I can pay this colorful lark is that it has me wanting to read the source novel. I’d imagine it’s less playful, but the version of the story on screen feels like it’s missing a lot of details that a movie less interested in being peppy and more interested in regaling us with a history lesson would probably include. Ministry does leave one wondering why this treatment was ultimately chosen — I can’t imagine anyone emerging from the film with a better understanding of any of the facts (I blame myself, not the movie, for this criticism— despite being childless, I have entered my Dad years, which means my cells crave WWII trivia). What they will emerge with is a smile, because taken as a bit of blockbuster funsies, it delivers the goods, at least up until the big finale, which is so poorly lit that it’s hard to follow. It sure sounds exciting, but the lack of light and lack of scenic geography makes it downright cryptic. Viewers must trust their knowledge of typical story beats to fill in the blanks, of which there are many.
The postscript features a lot of fun information about the real-world aftermath to the events of the film, again highlighting how much more interesting the actual story likely is compared to Ritchie’s film. It also features photos of the characters, none of whom resemble the hunks and babes who portray them onscreen. Not even a little. In fact, they all kinda look like the same guy, and that guy ain’t Cavill or Ritchson. It’s worth a chuckle, even if unintended.
Directed by Guy Ritchie
Written by Paul Tamsay, Eric Johnson, Arash Amel, Guy Ritchie, Damien Lewis
Starring Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Eiza González
Rated R, 120 minutes
