With Henry Cavill leading the pack, Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ is full of espionage, explosions, and pure entertainment.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Loosely based on a true story (and the 2014 book “Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII” by Damien Lewis), the mouth-filling, action-film comedy “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is more raucous Guy Ritchie movie than genuine World War II history. Ever since “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” was released in 1998, Ritchie has been among the most accomplished action film directors. “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” raised the standard of action movies in terms of speed, volume, tricked-up visuals, and distinctive “laddie” tongue-in-cheek humor. His work has been influential, uneven, and often bad (“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” anyone?). He started using variations of the word “Gentlemen” in his titles after releasing “The Gentlemen” in 2019, which he has followed up with a 2024 Netflix series starring Theo James and Kaya Scodelario. These “Gentlemen” films appear to be Ritchie’s response to the “Kingsman” movies of Matthew Vaughn.
In this latest “gentlemanly” effort, Ritchie and co-writers Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson (both “The Fighter”), and Arash Amel (“Rise”) seize upon the real-life undercover exercise known as “Operation Postmaster,” which took place on the Spanish island of Fernando Po off the West coast of Africa in January 1942. The purpose of the exercise was to cripple Hitler’s U-boat dominance in the Atlantic.
Boasting an extremely Ennio Morricone-like score by Christopher Benstead (Ritchie’s “Aladdin”), “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” which was shot in Turkey and the UK, actually kicks off like a British version of American Robert Aldrich’s 1967 classic “The Dirty Dozen.” A bearded, lavishly mustachioed, and pirate-like Henry Cavill, playing the real-life Gus March-Phillips, is released from prison by aspiring spy lord Brigadier Gubbins, aka M (Cary Elwes, and yes, there is a James Bond connection) and his assistant, ahem, Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox), Bond’s creator.
In a very amusing scene, taking advantage of Cavill’s underrated comic flair, March-Phillips relieves Gubbins of Scotch, cigars, and even an overcoat while negotiating terms of the exercise. He wants his own team: Irish sailor extraordinaire Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), “Danish hammer” and killer archer Anders Lassen (a very droll Alan Ritchson of TV’s “Reacher”), “Frogman” Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding), Mata Hari-like Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González, getting into the spirit) and island casino-owner Mr. Heron (Babs Olusanmokun). Some of the team set sail in a yacht to the island of Fernando Po, and their first stop is when they are boarded by suspicious German sailors.
Rory Kinnear, who played Bill Tanner, M’s chief of staff, in the Daniel Craig Bond films and almost all of the men in “Men” (2022), is also on hand as none other than Winston Churchill himself, the secret leader of “Operation Postmaster.” If he loses, Britain must seek terms with Hitler.
Before the operation can begin, March-Phillips and his team must free fellow spy Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer, using his real accent for a change) from a Nazi prison, where he has had electrical clamps connected to his bloody nipples and a car battery.
Mixing genuine archival footage with his newly shot scenes, Ritchie creates a faux-WWII setting. Ritchson’s debonair Scandinavian manner offsets the gruesome nastiness of his arrows and blades. Lassen’s specialty is dispatching German soldiers to “Nazi heaven.” González taps into her inner Marlene Dietrich when Marjorie sings “Mack the Knife” for the mostly Nazi casino crowd, although torturer and Jew hunter Heinrich Luhr (the great Til Schweiger, “Inglourious Basterds”) detects a Yiddish lilt in her German. “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” reminds us of the aforementioned “Inglourious Basterds” and, of course, Steven Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981). Ritchie’s film may be based on a true story, but it’s more Nazi kitsch, however amusing, than WWII history. What was always buffoonish in Ritchie’s work remains. But his cast makes the absolute best of the material. Jocularly, it all ends up with a lavishly Hitchcockian costume ball featuring Nazis and their friends dressed as the Frankenstein monster and denizens of Oz. Lassen dreams of “barrels full of Nazi hearts.” It’s “blood, murder, and mayhem.” But it’s also fun.
‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’
Rating: R for grisly images and extreme violence.
Cast: Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding, Eiza González, Alex Pettyfer, Babs Olusanmokun
Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Arash Amel and Guy Ritchie
Running Time: 2 hours
Where to Watch: AMC Boston Common, AMC South Bay, AMC Causeway, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport and suburban theaters
Grade: B+
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