Guy Ritchie has quietly become one of the most productive filmmakers in cinema today: The Ministry of War among Gentlemen (now streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) is his sixth film in as many years, with several projects in the pipeline. On the one hand, there is no denying his skillful craftsmanship; on the other, it can test our own capacity for flashy montages and irascible jokes. Henry Cavill, one of Richie’s main stars (Jason Statham must have been busy with other things, a dentist appointment or perhaps some PTO), presents this maritime adventure based very loosely on Operation Postmaster, a true story of the Second World War. Secret mission in which a small group of British soldiers attempted to cripple a Nazi submarine base in West Africa. Clever jokes, things exploding, Nazis getting stabbed…do we need anything else? The answer to that is perhaps firm.
THE WAR MINISTRY NOT KNIGHTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: The first title card reads: BASED ON A TRUE STORY. (Which makes this a BOATS movie with real boats!) The second says that this is based on events taken from Winston Churchill’s own archives, declassified in 2016. The third places us in the Atlantic Ocean in controlled waters by the Nazis in 1942, where the Nazi navy prepares to board a small fishing boat. There are two men on board: Gus March-Phillips, played by Cavill with torn mustaches, and if you’re wondering what differentiates “moustaches” from “a mustache,” well, it has to do with the mustache jumping and curling away from quite a powerful beard. The other is Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson of the Reacher TV series), who is so ripped he looks like he can juggle sperm whales. Like all the Nazis say PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR DOCUMENTS, they all act like drunks, like OK, WHATEVER, HAHA, HAHA, and, imagine, the Nazi boss shows he doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. The rest of the scene doesn’t go well for the Nazis, because Gus and Anders’ friends hide in the hull and begin shooting at the boarding party while another friend plants bombs on the Nazi ship, sending it into the murky depths.
How did this plan come about? Well, it wouldn’t be a Guy Ritchie movie without a time jump to 25 DAYS EARLIER, when Gus was broken out of a prison for extra-dangerous men and given a suicide mission by British top brass: there’s this Nazi base. on the island of Fernando Po, through which all supplies for the German submarine fleet are channeled. Those submarines are a real pain in the ass, with their stealthy underwater trips and nasty ship-sinking torpedoes; They are a great advantage, the Nazis have the British on the ropes. Gus would do his country a great benefit if he could assemble a crew and sneak in, blow up the supply depots and cripple the fleet. So Gus recruits Anders (nicknamed: The Danish Hammer) and a couple of other ne’er-do-wells (played by Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Henry Golding) to help generate another ne’er-do-well (Alex Pettyfer) from a German prison to bolster his ranks, so that the film has a key action piece from the beginning, which carries us through to the grand finale.
This mission is so illegal and silent that only a few irritating military bureaucrats participate in it, under the orders of Churchill himself (Rory Kinnear, full of prosthetics); If a different group of irritating military bureaucrats find out about it, Churchill could even be ousted as Prime Minister. So, hey, no pressure. Meanwhile, two other spies help in the mission on the island: African casino owner Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) will throw a big party to distract the bad guys, and singer Marjorie Stewart (Elza González) hopes that Nazi commander Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger, who was also in Inglorious Bastards) will be so hypnotized by some companion that he won’t know the base is under attack until it’s too late. Yes Gus and company. If you screw up, they’ll end up tortured by the Nazis. If they make it, they’ll probably end up back on the British brig. But hey, at least they get another chance to do what they do best: nonchalantly walk away from slow-motion explosions.
What movies will it remind you of?: Ritchie has always been accused of being a Tarantino acolyte, and this film could easily be renamed. Guy Ritchie’s incongruous sons of bitches. He also remembers fragments of Dunkirk and The darker hour.
Performance worth seeing: A problem of too many characters leads to a film full of anonymous performances. I suppose Ritchson shows the occasional flash of charisma that makes you want to root for the towering block of muscle of him to kill Nazis with great gusto.
Memorable dialogue: In the opening scene, Gus jokingly urges the Nazi naval idiots to punish Anders: “Make him walk the plank.” He loves wood!
Sex and skin: No.
Our opinion: There’s no arguing against Ritchie’s skills as a visual stylist who can turn an overly complicated narrative into a fun adventure. And although he practically goes through the motions with The Ministry of War among GentlemenHowever, he is a distinctive filmmaker who stands head and shoulders above most action movie directors; His action sequences are always well thought out and carefully choreographed, and his edits amplify movement rather than breaking it up into fast-paced fragments. This film, like all the films he makes, has an undeniable energy. It moves with intention and purpose.
Ritchie’s intention is to entertain us and Ministry it simply achieves that basic goal. Its purpose, however, is remarkably unambitious: to reach the end of the film. Sure, we laugh a little at Anders’ snarky dialogue and OTT brutality (he’s an incredible archer), and the action is skillfully executed, but it’s in service of a movie that has nothing to say. about anything except, I guess, Hooray for these unsung heroes of World War II, even though they probably looked nothing like this!. Maybe that’s the central joke of the movie? Of course, Ritchie’s films often deal with little more than his own twisted narrative and visual style, but this one is relatively simple (montages and time jumps are kept to a minimum) and lacks a magnetic central protagonist (Ritchie’s recent totally acceptable outputs man’s anger and Operation Fortune at least it gave us Jason Statham as a focal point). The irony here is undeniable: It seems as if Ritchie is playing it safe with a movie about guys who break the rules to get the job done.
Our call: The Ministry of War among Gentlemen It’s perfectly acceptable disposable entertainment, but you’ll want to SKIP IT until you can watch it for free on a streaming service.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
