Weekend Watch - The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is Guy Ritchie’s latest action film that opened this week in theaters, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. The film is based on the now declassified British World War II Operation Postmaster and stars Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Eiza González, Babs Olusanmokun, Cary Elwes, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Henry Golding, Rory Kinnear, Til Schweiger, Freddie Fox, and Danny Sapani as the various historical characters involved in the story. It has opened, like most of Ritchie’s latest films, to mixed reviews from critics and a generally positive audience reception. Let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: C-; with good action and actors that you can tell are enjoying themselves, you can’t really say that this is a bad movie, just a bit underwhelming.
Should you Watch This Film? If this was a film you were already interested in seeing, I’d go a head and see it in theaters, but if you haven’t heard about it or weren’t intrigued by it, you’re totally fine skipping it.
Why?
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare manages to tell a fresh story about a period of history that feels so overdone in cinema and does it with solid action and some fun actors. I think Ritchie’s desire to be true to the historicity of the events, while admirable, weakens the film’s action sensibilities, but it’s not trying to be prestige war picture, so some of the decisions don’t make perfect sense. It’s definitely a film that pleases its target audience (TNT dads) well enough but that doesn’t hit any of its notes perfectly enough to have any kind of staying power, unlike Ritchie’s early films.
The film has the cast of a bigtime, hard hitting action film with the plot of a more historical film. It contains three major action sequences, which should build on each other, getting more intense with each successive scene, instead peaking in the middle. The opening sequence of the film grips you immediately with Ritchie’s typical blend of humor, action, and tension, well-played by Cavill and Ritchson. The film then cuts to its flashback for exposition, explaining the details of the operation and giving us a decent idea of who each of the characters are before getting back to the next, and best, action sequence in the film – an intense breakout from a Nazi prison camp that really showcases the potential of the film that it unfortunately never really realizes again. The back half of the film is devoted to complicating the plan, introducing new and decently interesting side characters, like Danny Sapani’s Kambili Kalu and the villain Heinrich Luhr, played menacingly enough by Til Schweiger. Eiza González and Babs Olusanmokun certainly have the most to do in this portion of the film, playing the intelligence operatives who consistently have to pass information back to the British to keep Cavill’s March-Phillips and company apprised of the current state of affairs. All of this culminates in what should be a climactic action sequence of taking over a ship, escaping an island, and sabotaging a U-boat refueling depot that underwhelms at almost every turn compared to the rest of the film’s action sequences. It leaves the audience with a sense that they’ve just been watching an Assassin’s Creed film but with guns with the sheer number of faceless stealth kills and lack of climactic showdowns where the heroes’ success is ever in doubt.
To its credit, the film is decently produced and well-cast. The film’s sound is the standout of the technical department with every scene drawing you in at the right moments through the sound engineers’ creative use of silence, cacophony, and focused sound effects, keeping everything, even the slower parts moving at an acceptable pace. By having all these World War II British soldiers and operatives played by some of the most fun people in the industry at the moment, they keep you invested in the characters even with the film’s minimal character development. González and Olusanmokun do their parts well as the on-the-ground operatives, looking the part and playing well off of each other in the process. Of the “active” group, Pettyfer feels the most out of place, mostly because his character has to be the group’s mastermind and straight man, so he doesn’t have much to do besides stand there looking good and come up with ideas. Hero Fiennes Tiffin is a surprisingly welcome addition to the cast, playing Irishman Henry Hayes as the fun young guy along for the ride. Henry Golding is the requisite unhinged explosives expert, which somehow works for him, as he gets to show off both his action and comedy skills. Cavill, as the team’s leader, feels like the inspiration for James Bond that Ritchie wanted him to be, just coming across as the coolest dude you’ve ever seen in an action movie (until you see what the guy actually looked like). But for me, and most of the audience in my theater, it was Ritchson as the Danish expat Anders Lassen who stole the show at every turn, giving the funniest and most physically impressive performance of the film (this film combined with his recent slew of tweets might finally get me to check out Reacher).
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare offers a solid theatrical experience with some decent action sequences and fun characters that just falls short due to an underwhelming climax and a profound lack of character development, leaning harder on its action and espionage than the characters themselves. It’s inoffensive and fun but not as fun as it could be. The story is interesting enough to feel fresh in the context of World War II, and the technique of its telling offers some solid examples of production design. If you wanted to see this film before reading this review, I think you’ll still have a solid time watching it. If you didn’t, you’re not going to miss something that changes your life. It’s a film that does just what it says it’s going to, leaving a lot on the table that could’ve made it better without ever really misstepping into “bad” territory.
