The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)
Directed by Guy Ritchie
During World War II, the British Army assigns a group of competent soldiers to carry out a mission against the Nazi forces behind enemy lines... A true story about a secret British WWII organization — the Special Operations Executive. Founded by Winston Churchill, their irregular warfare against the Germans helped to change the course of the war, and gave birth to modern black operations.
4 connections found
View:
4 films that influenced this film
What critics say influenced The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
In the end, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare has its moments, harkening back to the winsome rogues and madcap mayhem of Ritchie's early gems, like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.
The Guy Ritchie that previously made irreverent and stylish films like Snatch, RocknRolla and the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies has now been swapped out for a much safer and cleaner cut replicant that simply points the camera and shoots.
His older films, like Snatch or Sherlock Holmes, forced you to remember that everyone is made of flesh, blood and bone which could be gruesomely exposed at any minute. By contrast, the violence in The Ministry feels as disconnected as ordering pizza through an app.
With his adaptation of the 2016 nonfiction book “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: How Churchill's Secret Warriors Set Europe Ablaze and Gave Birth to Modern Black Ops” by historian and war reporter Damien Lewis, Ritchie borrows Quentin Tarantino's winking postmodern retro style to pay homage to real-life British war heroes with the same reverence that Christopher Nolan paid to the heroes of Dunkirk.
Gus is played by one-time 007 candidate Henry Cavill, making his return to the Ritchie Repertory Players a decade after the buoyant The Man from U.N.C.L.E. While there’s nothing suave about the shaggy Gus — who shakes officers’ nerves rather than martinis — his intuition for international espionage is certainly an inspiration.
However, where this black ops blockbuster surpasses those expectations is the fact that instead of merely acting like the next Inglourious Basterds, Guy Ritchie’s picture throws in some DNA from Ocean’s Eleven and his own The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to sweeten the deal.
With a crooked grin, Cavill struts into the war room with the bravado he brought to Ritchie's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with a spiciness that's more Cavill in Mission: Impossible: Fallout, when he thrilled audiences by cocking his biceps as if they were actual guns.
It was refreshing to see Ritchie take on a narrative that carried weight of its own, the sort of tale you'd expect to see from the mind of someone not behind The Man from U.N.C.L.E..
While this is probably Ritchie’s most satisfying movie since “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” its shortcomings underline the stylistic flair the “Snatch” director has been forced to forfeit in order to become a prolific journeyman capable of churning out another cost-effective action movie for the Lionsgates and STX Entertainments of the world every nine months.
The Guy Ritchie that previously made irreverent and stylish films like Snatch, RocknRolla and the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies has now been swapped out for a much safer and cleaner cut replicant that simply points the camera and shoots.