The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Guy Ritchie's "Ungentlemanly Warfare" is based, kinda, on the true exploits of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Unsurprisingly, given Ritchie's involvement, liberties have been taken with the story.

The SOE existed to operate behind enemy lines, committing sabotage and various other acts considered ungentlemanly by the upper crust officers who ran the conventional army. In 1942, England was starving and its army could not be resupplied because German U-boats owned the seas. With the blessing of Winston Churchill, the commander of the SOE sent a team to destroy the Duchessa d'Aosta, a supply ship that supplied all the carbon dioxide filters for the U-boats. These filters permitted these submarines to remain submerged for prolonged periods. By disabling the supply ship, the U-boat fleet would be effectively sidelined. The mission was labelled Operation Postmaster. It took place in January, 1942. This story centers on the real characters - Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill), Anders Larssen (Alan Ritchson) and Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer) - who were sent to complete this mission. In this film, some totally fictitious characters and other amalgamations of real-life participants also tagged along.

"Ungentlemanly Warfare" contains all the satisfying flourishes of a film by Guy Ritchie ("Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," "Sherlock Holmes," "The Gentlemen"). This film is cool and stylish. It's filled with swaggering characters spouting cheeky dialogue. There are flashbacks to keep the moviegoer off-balance. There are first-rate set pieces/action scenes. Oh, and there's violence - lots and lots of violence, most of it gratuitous. Did I mention the violence? The entire package is delivered with a manic gleefulness that's contagious.

While the story is "based on true events," reality is just a jumping off point. This film suggests that a major role of the operation was to persuade an officially neutral US to enter the war and begin helping Britain. Pearl Harbor occurred the month before, so the US was already fully engaged. The film also suggests that by disabling the supply ship, the SOE's mission could change the course of the war. While the events depicted in "Ungentlemanly Warfare" were not unimportant, a bigger factor was the development of RDX, an explosive powerful enough to sink the U-boats in the open sea.

The film offers an interesting side note. One of the staffers for the SOE depicted in the film is a young officer named Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox). Yep, that Ian Fleming. His boss was known as M. In his James Bond novels, Fleming incorporates the character of M. Fleming has noted several times that the character of James Bond was based on Gus March-Phillips.

To summarize, the cast here is charming and appealing, in no small part because they appear to be reveling in their madcap roles. Some of the location shots (much of the movie was filmed in Antalya, Turkey) make the film as worthwhile as a NatGeo documentary. The "true story" is a muddled mess. And there's the violence, lots and lots of violence. (Historical note: no one was actually killed during Operation Postmaster, although one Nazi soldier fainted at the sight of the intruders.) Guy Ritchie's energy and enthusiasm, which permeate this piece, will win over a lot of the folks in the seats.

And it honestly should have been. With this nice ensemble and decent budget, great production design, and a director who in theory definitely should have the chops, THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE had everything it needed and more.

And yet, it misses the mark. Much of it has to do with the direction, I'm afraid. A lack of spirit and inspiration can be felt throughout the film, sometimes worse than other times, but neither the shots he called nor his direction of the actors are worthy of Ritchie's potential. The script could have used a bit more polishing, especially concerning the dialogue, but it's really mostly the practical aspects where this falls flat.

If you're a native German speaker, you will also notice how bad the fake Germans actually are. They should have been dubbed, but nobody seemed to care. Even Til Schweiger messed up some lines in German (probably drunk on set, as usual) - nobody cared.

What also made the film worse than it could have been is the score. Someone told the composer to go for "Schifrin meets Morricone", I guess, and what he delivered was a weak attempt at copying both. No swing, no drama, no feeling whatsoever. Just flat and boring, matching the direction perfectly.

That being said, you can still kill a bit of time watching this, since Cavill, Ritchson, et al are very likeable and have a lot of charming presence. Locations are nice, the DoP did a great job with the lighting, and Eiza González has a great singing performance (refreshingly with no audible pitch correction, but as a professional singer with an amazing voice she really doesn't need any), even though the arrangement and interpretation of the famous "Mack The Knife" is quite horrible.

But if anything, this has made me wish for a more silly WW2 comedy with Cary Elwes in the lead. I'd buy that for a dollar.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is directed by Guy Ritchie and stars Henry Cavil. It is (very) loosely based on a true story of a British WW2 covert operation called 'Operation Postmaster'. And the film is advertised as a 'Spy Action Comedy'....

I have to admit I'm not a huge Guy Ritchie fan (except for the Sherlock Holmes movies, which Robert Downey Jr. Really brought alive). And the fact that they messed around with what was already a totally remarkable TRUE story, I find strange. Personally, I would have much preferred a straight up historical action / drama / thriller than what is essentially an over the top gorefest. This is as much a WW2 movie as 'Overlord' (think zombies on D-Day). Stranger is that they show the true actual heroes at the end of the movie, goodness knows what their families think of being linked to this fantasy.

It's really not awful, it's a mindless action romp with a huge body count. As some have noted, the dialogue is smug and annoying in equal measure. The shots of sets and extras are all done well though and as you can see from the extremes of the reviews it is the kind of film to polarise opinion.

I enjoyed it, but was just disappointed it veered so far away from what is actually a truly remarkable historical event. But the fashion at the moment seems to be away from this type of movie making.

6/10.

It has been awhile since I have seen something so predicable.

It felt like the script had been copied from the standard WW2 movie then all the quality suspense, excitement and character development which is normally in these movies replaced with vague attempts at humour and actors which feel like they are all running on idle.

There are so many good actors in this which could carry almost any movie but they have such a bad script to work.

The whole production feels like it is missing 95% of a good script to the point I am not sure they even had one and didn't just wing it and hope to put something together in editing, though as the actors deliver so poorly I assume they must be following a script.

It's the true WWII story of Operation Postmaster. This Guy Ritchie movie is most definitely highly fictionalized. It's 1942. Britain is in its darkest hour. The Blitz is destroying London. U-boats are cutting off the Atlantic supply route. America remains on the sidelines. The Nazis' main U-boat supply ship is located in a neutral Spanish colonial west African port. British parliament refuses to attack a neutral country. Winston Churchill secretly orders the unauthorized mission led by imprisoned soldier Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) with his motley crew of outsiders.

This is one of those real fake history movies. It's more than the normal fictionalization. It's got the wild sardonic Guy Ritchie humor. These characters are rather one dimensional with a few exceptions. It feels more like a comic book movie although that's fine since that's the intention. A highlight is the insanely gorgeous Eiza González. Alan Ritchson and his giant muscles seem to be popping up everywhere. I like this, but I don't love it.