Director Guy Ritchie sends Henry Cavill back to World War II in The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Our review of an uneven action comedy:
If Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, with its abrupt violence and sharp-talking criminals, was Guy Ritchie’s British answer to Reservoir Dogs, then The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare is his Inglourious Basterds. Like the latter, it’s a ‘guys on a mission’ movie that takes place in World War II, but takes its cue from the heightened action of earlier war films set in the same era – The Dirty Dozen and Escape To Athena, or Kelly’s Heroes – rather than reality.
Theoretically, Ungentlemanly Warfare’s based on a true story – that of Operation Postmaster, a once-classified mission that took place in 1942 – but Ritchie uses it as a loose jumping-off point for a violent, quippy adventure that has more in common with British war comics like Commando than Damien Lewis’s history book (Churchill’s Secret Warriors) on which it’s based.
Henry Cavill leads the operation as Gus March-Phillips, a scruffy yet capable special operations commando who assembles a team of similarly eccentric saboteurs. Their mission: to infiltrate the waters around the Nazi-controlled island of Fernando Po to disrupt the enemy’s naval operation.
Ritchie’s action cuts between March-Phillips’ side of the raid, as he and his commandos pick up a captured operative (Alex Pettyfer’s Geoffrey Appleyard) from a Nazi stronghold, and a pair of spies – played by Eiza González and Babs Olusanmokun – who’ve infiltrated the enemy’s island base.
The foundation for a taut, entertaining action thriller is here, but Ritchie’s choppy, gaudy approach to storytelling and some stilted dialogue constantly undercut the tension. An early scene which introduces March-Phillips and his brawny, Swedish compatriot Lassen (Alan Ritchson) illustrates the problem: their boat is boarded by a detachment of Nazis in white uniform, and it’s immediately clear they’re outnumbered and outgunned. Unsure whether to play the scene for comedy or suspense, Ritchie tries both and misses; neither March-Phillips nor Lassen are intimidated by the enemies patrolling their ship, and as a result, nor are we.
The same is true of Ungentlemanly Warfare’s other action scenes: characters wade into gun battles with their eyes rolling and their tongues hanging out, and most of the heroes are so capable and larger-than-life that they seldom appear to be in any danger. One anachronistic line – “Sounds like stealth mode’s over” – places the audience squarely in the realm of videogames. The aforementioned Lassen even looks uncannily like BJ Blazkowicz, the four-square hero of the Wolfenstein series of World War II shooters.
Not that there aren’t some sparks of inspiration here. Til Schweiger, as SS Commander Heinrich Luhr is an engagingly sleazy villain – this film’s answer to Christoph Waltz’s unforgettable Hans Landa in Inglourious – and the scenes between he and his would-be seducer Marjorie (Eiza Gonzalez) have a fizz of tension missing elsewhere. On a technical level, the action scenes are also watchable and well-staged, though not at the level of 2021’s Wrath Of Man – for this writer, Ritchie’s best film in recent years.
Now over a quarter of a century into his career, Ritchie’s output rate seems to be increasing to Ridley Scott levels. He had two movies come out in 2023 – Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre and Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant – and a TV series, The Gentlemen, streaming on Netflix around the time Ungentlemanly Warfare emerged in US cinemas earlier in 2024. It’s an impressive work ethic, but parts of Ungentlemanly Warfare suggests that the pace might be a bit too fast for its own good.
A line of dialogue in one scene is repeated almost verbatim by Henry Cavill’s character two scenes later; Rory Kinnear, a brilliant actor, is entirely out of place as one of the weirdest interpretations of Winston Churchill in the history of cinema. They’re just a couple of the tellingly rough edges in a film that tries to be slick and crowd-pleasing.
In his best films, Ritchie establishes dramatic stakes as well as likeable, colourful characters; with Ungentlemanly Warfare, the plans are all in place, but the operation doesn’t quite come off.
The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare is streaming now on Prime Video.
