The British military recruits a small group of highly skilled soldiers to strike against German forces behind enemy lines during WWII, and delivered with smashing results! It's "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare," of course!
So the trailer both sells and spoils the movie since most of the good stuff is *in the trailer. "TMOUW" feels every bit of its two hours long, with plenty of downtime in between all the cool stuff. That's surprising since director Guy Ritchie made his bones through stylized violence carried out by watchable characters with cracking dialogue. But he may be at his best when he *writes the stuff he directs - like "Snatch," or "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels." But unlike "The Gentlemen" which he co-wrote and is chock full of memorable characters, "TMOUW" only has a couple, like Henry Cavill's "Major Gus March-Phillipps." The rest are mostly flat and barely in it since there's so much going on, spread out over multiple players who do more fighting than talking; so no one else gets a ton of screen time or lines to make their unsavory way into our hearts.
And even though it's based on a true story, how the license is soooo creatively taken makes it seem unlikely; the bad guys don't notice glaringly obvious, guards don't have guns or don't shoot back... one-man armies cavalierly stroll into action piece after action piece taking out 15 to 20 guys each with barely a scratch to show for it... and even if they do get hurt it doesn't phase them. For a true story, it's not believable.
Or funny! Much. For something deemed at least partially a comedy, most of the funny stuff was in the trailer, too.
It's still entertaining and interesting since there's still some great stuff here and there which earns it a B- from me, even with its flaws.
But I was hoping for another "The Gentlemen!"
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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)
MPAA: R
Running Time: 2 hrs
Genres: Action, Drama, War
