Kimber Myers
With The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Guy Ritchie would make Aldo Raine proud. The British director obediently followed Brad Pitt’s Inglourious Basterds character’s dictum when making this World War II action movie: “We’re gonna be doin’ one thing and one thing only… killin’ Nazis.” While The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is light on minor elements like historical details, military strategy, and character development, Ritchie’s film is heavy on Nazis getting destroyed in inventive ways — and is admittedly pretty great at that one thing.
Based on the book Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare recounts the real-world events of Operation Postmaster. In 1942, things were looking grim for the British war effort, so Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear) took an off-the-books route to beat the Nazis, using a group of convicted criminals and less-than-model soldiers led by Gus March-Phillips (a wonderfully rascally Henry Cavill). He and his ragtag band are charged with sinking the Italian ship departing from a West African island that supplies the U-boats in the Atlantic, which could turn the tide for Allied forces in the war.
As happens in many Ritchie heist movies, March-Phillips assembles a group with various skills for the mission. There’s Danish killing machine Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson), strategy master Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer), explosives expert Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding), and gifted sailor Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin). It’s not entirely clear what March-Phillips brings to the band, other than absolute glee at killing Nazis, a disregard for the rules, and looking good in a sharply cut coat. On shore, his group is aided by a pair working undercover — actress Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González) and casino owner Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) — who are the ones who actually talk to the Nazis to get intel, rather than just shoot them with arrows or stab them repeatedly the second they come into contact with them.
Though The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare concludes with the requisite photos of the real people who inspired the story and what happened to them after the events of the film, it leaves things vague enough that this could turn into a franchise. And though I would still prefer a follow-up to Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I wouldn’t be mad about a sequel to this movie, especially if it sheds a little more light on each of these men and the lone woman in their group. The screenplay from Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson and Arash Amel & Ritchie offers little insight or differentiation into each character, other than how they fight and why, which is always some variation on how the Nazis killed a family member.
Ritchie proffers his take on the subgenre with relish. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is fast and funny, coasting on the charm of these characters and fizzy action sequences. Ritchie appears to have taken as much joy in making it as these people do in offing the Germans. And boy, do these guys love what they do. If you thought Ritchson’s Jack Reacher didn’t kill enough people in two seasons of Reacher, his Anders Lassen makes up for it here, with a body count that just seems superhuman. Cavill’s March-Phillips is equally delighted every time he takes out a Nazi, sprouting a grin that shines through his scruffy beard. Seeing this many people killed on screen should be a bit of a downer — except for the fact that they’re Nazis, so it’s okay, right?
This specific story will likely be new to most viewers (especially American ones who aren’t even good with our own history), but the beats will feel familiar to war movie fans. The Dirty Dozen and Inglourious Basterds were better at the Allied-rogues-killing-Nazis model, and the Ennio Morricone-esque score from Christopher Benstead and some of the dialogue makes The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare feel especially indebted to the latter. Yet this is Guy Ritchie working at the top of his game; he almost always prioritizes style over substance, but he does it with such verve that it sometimes works — and this is one of those times.
B
“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare“ is in theaters Friday.
