Guy Ritchie has become something of a young Ridley Scott lately, not in any stylistic choices he’s making as a filmmaker, not at all, but merely in the sheer quantity of his output. In the past five years alone, Ritchie has directed six films (Aladdin, The Gentlemen, Wrath of Man, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, The Covenant, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare), as well as directing two episodes of the television adaptation of The Gentleman, with another film set to be released by Lionsgate next year already in the can, and finally one last film with Apple Original Films currently in production. At the age of 55, Ritchie clearly has no plans of slowing down, in fact, he’s ramping up his output unlike any other filmmaker working these days, and somehow outputting very solid work in the process. Two of Ritchie’s strongest attributes that help with this level of consistency are knowing exactly what his strengths are as a filmmaker and sticking to them pretty faithfully. This doesn’t mean creative risks aren’t taken and he doesn’t ever go outside the box, but rather he knows how to rest his various works on a foundation of solid assuredness, and can build the unique elements of each project on top of that sturdy base. Expect something kinetic, witty, a little deranged, and very, very British, and the rest will fall into place (usually … we don’t really discuss Swept Away).
Henry Cavill in THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE. Photo credit: Dan Smith for Lionsgate.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare follows the real-life (let’s use that term very loosely here) secret formation of the real-life Special Operations Executive (SOE), a small group of covert agents assembled by Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear) and Brigadier Colin Gubbins, also known as “M” (Cary Elwes), operating outside the legal status of the British military during World War II. It helped conduct covert sabotage operations deemed too out there for standard military operations, by utilizing a group of agents also deemed too out there by standard military operations. Tasked to destroy a German supply ship filled with munitions for the deadly German U-boats off the coast of West Africa, and led by Gus March-Phillipps (Henry Cavill), a chaotic, albeit very skilled soldier, the team is built consisting of Irish sailor Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, doing his damndest Barry Keoghan impression), explosives expert Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding), Danish combat specialist Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson), and special ops solider Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer). Meanwhile, on the island of Fernando Po, British agents Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González) and Mr. Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) have set up shop for the mission by weakening Nazi coordination by leading the island’s leader, Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger), into a dangerous honey trap while the A-team conducts their operation under their nose.
Eiza González in THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE. Photo credit: Dan Smith for Lionsgate.
There are a lot of spinning wheels going at once in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and generally they’re all spun very efficiently in conjunction with each other. Ritchie’s kinetic energy as a director is used to its full effect here, creating something which, from its opening moments, is both thrilling and incredibly funny all the same. It’s a very entertaining mashup of tones that only someone like Ritchie could pull off with such a razor thin balance as to not become grating and obnoxious quickly. Don’t let the “Based on a True Story” moniker plastered in its marketing materials sway you into thinking this is some serious historical drama, it’s Snatch (2000) with Nazis, it’s WWII Seven Samurai (1954), and it’s the movie The King’s Man (2021) desperately wanted to be but couldn’t (and it’s not lost on me Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn are close friends and former producing partners). This is highly fictionalized, movie magic type of stuff, but why would you deny yourself such a good time when Ritchie knows how to have one?
L-R: Alex Pettyfer, Alan Ritchson, Henry Cavill, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, and Henry Golding in THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE. Photo credit: Dan Smith for Lionsgate.
Like most of Ritchie’s films involving a ragtag team of eccentric specialists pulling off a grand heist, the real meat of the film comes in its ensemble casts, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is no exception. While Cavill (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), Golding (The Gentlemen), Fiennes-Tiffin (The Woman King) (whom I truly cannot reiterate enough is literally doing a Barry Keoghan impression), Olusanmokun (The Wrath of Man), Pettyfer (Magic Mike), Schweiger (Inglorious Basterds), Kinnear (Men), and Elwes (Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning) are all very good in their roles, the two shining MVPs of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare come in budding stars Eiza González (Baby Driver) and Alan Ritchson (Reacher). González’s femme fatale wrestling with her identity as a German Jew having to seduce a Nazi officer makes much of the B-plot of the film following her and Heron’s escapades on Fernando Po before the arrival of the SOE sometimes more entertaining than the main plot itself, and Ritchson’s chipper but highly-skilled and bloodthirsty, but only for Nazi blood, Lassen is a charming departure for an actor who can often be typecast into overly serious macho man roles. It’s clear to see why both of them are finding big successes for their respective careers at this moment.
Babs Olusanmokun in THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE. Photo credit: Dan Smith for Lionsgate.
This isn’t to say there isn’t one somewhat glaring issue with The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare which keeps it from being genuinely great. While much of the film is highly fictionalized, the core details of the story obviously have to be kept intact for the sake of being able to do the whole “Based on a true story” thing, but when you combine the massive, overly stylized first two-thirds of the film with the way the final mission carried itself out, there’s a bit of a deflating energy that comes with it. It’s not that the final act isn’t exciting, it is, but once you realize that the film is over, there is a sort of “That’s it?” quality to it that feels incredibly abrupt given that this 120 minute film took its time in building us up to this grand finale that kinda just…happens.
Alan Ritchson in THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE. Photo credit: Dan Smith for Lionsgate.
It’s nice to see a filmmaker really come into his own, not necessarily in a stylistic sense, as Ritchie has been unabashedly himself behind a camera since 1998, but in the comfort and ease that comes in being able to really do what you want, as much as you want after so many years. Ritchie isn’t a filmmaker who is constantly throwing his hat into different rings, but is tweaking individual elements of his tried-and-true formulas to create new experiences that, while familiar, all stand on their own two feet handedly, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is no different. This is that type of film my dad and I would’ve seen on a Friday night when I was in eighth grade while I spent the weekend at his house, and it’s that sort of mid-budget dad movie that I’ve missed so much in this landscape of big-budget, soulless franchise films. I think it’s beautiful that Guy Ritchie has worked so tirelessly to preserve such an underrated genre of film. Be ready for your dad to ask you about this movie at Thanksgiving this year, and prepare for him to absolutely butcher the title of it even more.
In theaters April 19th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare website.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
Dreadful, really dreadful….