The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is an impossibly glib, rip-roaring, and exciting action picture. It’s the type of old-fashioned entertainment full of movie stars who get the job done, cracking-wise, and goddamn, they look good doing it. You can’t help but get swept up in the action and think a franchise is born.
It helps to have a cast with this much swashbuckling beefcake, including a Superman, a Reacher, and a G.I. Joe. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a film my wife calls the “Five Hot Guys” movie, with lots of eye candy and bloodshed for everyone involved. In a way, it is the perfect date movie.
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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare Review and Synopsis
The film follows Gus March-Phillipps (Henry Cavill), a rogue royal special forces agent who is notoriously hard to control. However, that’s why Brigadier Gubbins ‘M’ (Carey Elwes) chose him for the next mission—he won’t stop until the job is done. M’s second in command, Ian Flemming (Freddie Fox), agrees and calls in Gus—in one of the film’s best scenes—for a meeting.
Along with the help of Marjorie (Eiza González) and Heron (Dune’s Babs Olusanmokun), Gus is assigned to a covert operation by the Special Operations Executive at the direction of Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear). The operation was to cripple the Nazi U-boat operation and manipulate America into the war, a sentiment the Prime Minister’s cabinet was not in favor of.
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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a Guy Ritchie effort based on Damien Lewis’s nonfiction book Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII. A handful of scribes adapted the book, including Ritchie, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Arash Amel (Rise). Tamasy and John rewrote the script, and it appears to make a difference.
The writers of The Fighter, Patriots Day, and The Outpost add a layer of gritty, non-stop, knuckle-busting, lip-splitting (more like throat-slashing) action to a film that’s a lot of fun. Every action-packed scene, where anywhere from one to dozens of Nazis die, is accompanied by a glib response. The action scenes resonate. If they aren’t thrilling, at the very least, they are darkly humorous.
In particular, the action-buddy chemistry between Alan Ritchson’s Swedish Anders Lassen is infectious. Ritchson continues to impress and can add comic flair to any action role he takes on. I am starting to think the former American Idol contestant and Blue Mountain State star could play the Caped Crusader. He’s dynamic here, even better than Cavill, who oozes movie star charisma.
Is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare Worth Watching?
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is worth watching because it is the most fun you’ll have at the movies with a Guy Ritchie film in decades. The film has a certain high-octane energy with an old-fashioned 50s cinema style that’s, for lack of a better term, a good time. Along with a killer scene-stealing Eiza González (what a dance number), that film is guaranteed to turn heads.
Now, does the film lose steam by the third act? Of course. In particular, González’s Marjorie’s escape seems like the writers want to call it a day. However, you have almost a graphic novel presentation of a (I assume very loosely) based on an actual story film whose sole purpose is to entertain you to your heart’s content.
Then you add the “M” and Ian Flemming factor, with Screenrant quoting Cavill and saying Gus March-Phillipps inspired Flemming’s most famous creation, James Bond. (Personally, Alex Pettyfer’s Geoffrey Appleyard character seems more like a 007 inspiration.) You have a potential The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare franchise in the making for years to come.
You can watch the new film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare only in theaters April 19.
7/10
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