Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson head up a team of lovable rogues on an unofficial and unauthorised mission during World War II.
Guy Ritchie, who released two films in 2023 alone, is continuing his prolific run with the action comedy, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
This film is based on the story of Operation Postmaster, a real unofficial and unauthorised mission discovered in Winston Churchill’s declassified files.
In 1942, during World War II, Churchill puts together a team – Gus-March Phillips (Henry Cavill), Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson), Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding), Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) and Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer). He wants these men to pose as fisherman and sail to the Spanish-controlled island of Fernando Po off the coast of West Africa in a trawler boat.
Once there, the men are ordered to sabotage the Duchessa d’Aosta, an Italian cargo ship supplying the Nazi U-boats, thereby disrupting their whole operation. Agents Marjorie Stewart (Eiza Gonzalez) and Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) are already on the island, going undercover with the Nazis.
This had so much potential to be an thrilling wartime film that shines a light on true events. But unfortunately, this act of heroism has been transformed into a deeply average action film that is bizarrely flat, dull and shallow. There are flashes of fun – a mission to liberate Appleyard from Nazi torture, for example – but it is overall nowhere near as entertaining as it could have been.
There are a few reasons for this. The film is too long and the pacing is all over the place – it needed to be snappy and have lots of forward momentum but it lags in the middle and cuts back and forth between the island espionage work and the boat too much. Plus, you expect the boys to be the focus but more screentime is given to the agents and they’re not as interesting.
The narrative builds towards the showdown at Fernando Po but it is not as thrilling as it should have been. There is something missing that stops it from being an awesome action finale.
Looking at the positives, Cavill is having the time of his life as March-Phillips (believed to be the inspiration for James Bond) and he really understands the tone Ritchie is going for. Ritchson is another standout; he delivers on the action as the bulked-up Danish man violently killing Nazis with all manners of weapons.
While there are many dodgy accents on display, the worst performance by a mile is Rory Kinnear and his take on Churchill. He doesn’t look or sound anything like him. Perhaps Ritchie did this on purpose to be funny and it simply didn’t work.
Overall, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a generic action comedy that wastes its stellar cast and promising potential.
On Prime Video from Friday 26th July.
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