The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) Dir: Guy Ritchie
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Name a better combination than Guy Ritchie and overrated films that feel exactly the same every time. As you no doubt can already tell from my first sentence, I am not a particularly big fan of this action comedy's director. However, I did quite fancy watching this one, considering its topic and fun trailer.
The characters were paper thin, to the point that most of them seemed to have near enough the same personality. There was also a truly bizarre depiction of Winston Churchill, which was both poorly cast and acted. There was only two characters I liked for their personalities, the rest were rather dull.
At least the action and corresponding soundtrack was fairly good, although the film does feature the most egregiously exaggerated and unrealistic use of an arrow I've ever seen. That aside, I will give credit where its due, I did enjoy the vast majority of the other action sequences that the film had to offer.
I found the writing to be - as I often do with Ritchie - mediocre and repetitive. Clunky exposition, even, as some of it was, spoken by the sultry voice of Henry Cavill, is still clunky exposition. Add to this a frustratingly predictable plot, and you see why I was so disappointed.
Henry Cavill gave a strong, if rather samey, performance. I do enjoy when he plays a well-spoken Englishman who can do very impressive and dangerous things, however, I did find myself a little tired of it here. This was mainly, I must admit, because he said the phrase "old boy" at the end of virtually every sentence.
Eiza González provided the film with a very welcome degree of elegance and versatility, though, much like the other protagonists, the fact that her character had seemingly no weaknesses whatsoever became a little dull, and subsequently took away from my enjoyment of her acting.
Til Schweiger made for a fine villain, though his shtick got old quickly, and his character's lack of depth became ever more apparent as the film progressed. It's a shame, because his character could've been interesting, but instead he was just another trope-ridden World War Two villain.
Of the supporting cast, Babs Olusanmokun stood out the most, in my eyes. He was the most endearing person in the film by quite a way. I also enjoyed the cheekiness of both Alan Ritchson and the underrated Cary Elwes, particularly Elwes, who always has a witty charm.
Aside from these names, Henry Golding, Alex Pettyfer, Freddie Fox and Hero Fiennes Tiffin were the others who deserved positive mentions. The aforementioned Churchill character was played by Rory Kinnear, for those interested.
Overall, this was a fairly fun but incredibly shallow World War Two action film, which failed to produce much more than a couple of mild laughs, and struggled to hold my attention for the full two hours. I was hoping for more, given the story it was telling, but unfortunately it missed the mark for me.
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