‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ movie review: Guy Ritchie’s glib blitzkrieg is a Nazi-slaughter spectacle

A still from ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’
| Photo Credit: YouTube/ Lionsgate Movies

Guy Ritchie’s latest WWII action flick doesn’t just demand the suspension of our historical disbelief, rather, warrants a full-on defenestration of period accuracy altogether. Ostensibly based on true events from the “unsanctioned, unauthorised, and unofficial suicide mission” dubbed Operation Postmaster, the film teeters precariously on the edge of farce and folly, albeit to greater effect than anticipated.

The clandestine mission is simple: blow up the Nazi supply ships to the Nazi submarines so that Uncle Sam can swoop in and save Queen and country from the looming clutches of Herr Führer. The real-life wartime escapade that sounds almost too enterprising to be true, was the British commando raid that saw a band of intrepid operatives swiping Axis ships right from under the noses of the Nazis. The covert mission unfolded in the dead of night on the sleepy Spanish island of Fernando Po, where our titular ragtag crew of daredevils, armed with more guts than gear, managed to pull off the heist of the century.

Ritchie treats the Second World War with less sombre and more as a canvas for his signature concoction of kinetic action and snappy dialogue. At the centre of it all is a remarkably charming Henry Cavill, who plays the extravagantly facial-haired Gus March-Phillipps — a swashbuckling Brit who seems to have wandered off the set of The Dirty Dozen. Gus’s introduction, shackled and sipping brandy, is a robust blend of anachronistic bravado and wit and a fitting match for Ritchie’s penchant for wisecracking antiheroes.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare revels in its own absurdity, peppering the narrative with a parodied The A-Team-like cast of supporting characters who seem plucked from a comic book rather than the very real dossier of a special ops force. There’s the obligatory big-chested Nord (Alan Ritchson), who makes Jack Reacher’s kill count feel rather tame; the unhinged arsonist (Henry Golding), who serves no purpose other than KABOOM; and the seductive femme fatale tailor-made for a 007 outing (Eiza González), whose talents seem frustratingly wasted.

If Inglourious Basterds gave us a revisionist revenge fantasy, Ritchie’s film offers a more cartoonish caricature of wartime heroism. Nazis, in this universe, exist purely as target practice for our motley crew of Allied renegades. The video game NPC cannon fodder are dispatched with a gleeful disregard for subtlety, falling to bullets, arrows, switchblades, axes and the occasional bomb; with Call of Duty-like precision. It’s a morally uncomplicated playground where the bad guys are very bad, and the good guys are unburdened by the complexities of real warfare and make it out more or less unscathed., thanks more in part to plot armour, rather than a reverence to historical fact.

The film’s main antagonist, Heinrich Luhr, played by Til Schweiger, is a shoddy facsimile of Christoph Waltz’s iconic Hans Landa. Where the latter was a (Oscar-winning) masterclass in malevolent charisma, Luhr’s pantomime baddie felt like nothing more than a cardboard cutout of villainy — a hollow echo of Waltz’s elegance that leaves you longing for the original’s nuanced menace.

There is also a cast of historical figures reimagined through a decidedly Ritchie-esque lens. Freddie Fox’s Ian Fleming, pre-007 days, and Rory Kinnear’s M (yes, that M) are less characters and more a wink and a nudge, their inclusion solely to fulfil Ritchie’s Easter egg-laying fantasies. The film’s jaunty score also echoes the instantly recognisable motifs of Ennio Morricone but often clashes with its more intense action sequences, inevitably undermining any semblance of genuine peril.

And yet, for all its flaws, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is undeniably entertaining. It’s a good old-fashioned popcorn flick, the kind of movie you watch with friends, cracking up at its ridiculous disregard for convention. Cavill and his co-stars unabashedly amp up the braggadocio and never fail to deliver on the impeccably choreographed, over-the-top, action set pieces that in essence, make Ritchie’s flair for spectacle a jolly good show, as always.

Though bolstered with a charm of their own, these Guns of Navaronne-style historical dramas are often weighed down by their own self-seriousness. Ritchie’s devil-may-care attitude makes The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare a brash breath of fresh air — its brazen disregard for the sacrosanct is a riotous reminder that it’s perfectly acceptable to surrender to pure, unadulterated fun (unless you’re a Nazi, or a historian).

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video