Guy Ritchie Seems as Bored by ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ as We Are

Guy Ritchie loves movies about rough-and-tumble bros—or, rather, blokes—and at its best, his work generates amusing excitement from having tough guys band together to complete intricate and daring action-adventure missions. The director’s cinema is one of attitude and flair, and over the course of his prior three features (Wrath of Man, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, The Covenant), he’s moved confidently between stern and silly modes, all while maintaining the rugged swagger that has long been his trademark. Thus, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare would seem to be an almost ideal project for Ritchie—which is why its lethargy comes as such a dispiriting surprise.

A low-wattage affair that goes through the spy motions without ever providing more than formulaic reasons to care about its plot or its players, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (April 19, in theaters) is a dramatized real-life saga whose specifics were declassified by the British government in 2016. Loosely based on Damien Lewis’ book Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII, it concerns Winston Churchill’s clandestine attempt to stave off the escalating Nazi threat by mounting an unauthorized exercise to end Hitler’s stranglehold on the Atlantic Ocean and, by doing so, to allow the United States to involve itself in the global conflict. Dubbed “Operation Postmaster,” it was an endeavor of the utmost secrecy and importance. Yet even though its characters repeatedly state those obvious facts to each other (and the audience), Ritchie’s film never feels like it has high stakes, largely because every element is dramatized as a cliché, devoid of personality or suspense.

With Nazi U-boats keeping America out of World War II, and with his cowardly commanders advising him to surrender to Hitler, Churchill (Rory Kinnear, in crummy make-up) decides that victory hinges on destroying this oceanic blockade. To turn the tide, he devises a plan to neuter the U-boats by blowing up the Duchess, the Italian cargo ship that provides the German submarines with supplies. The Duchess is refueled and restocked in the neutral West African coastal island of Fernando Po, and on the recommendation of his co-conspirators Brigadier Gubbins “M” (Cary Elwes) and Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox)—as in, the future creator of 007—Churchill enlists the services of Gus March-Phillipps (Henry Cavill), a convict who doesn’t follow orders and derives great grinning-with-his-tongue-out pleasure from killing Nazis.

Despite Mach-Phillipps ultimately serving as Fleming’s inspiration for his MI6 icon, as well as Ritchie’s continuing interest in espionage material, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare exhibits none of the stylish cool or extravagant thrills of a James Bond film. Worse, however, it doesn’t even boast the lighthearted sparks of Ritchie’s prior stabs at the genre. As March-Phillipps, Cavill cackles in the face of danger and delights in doing away with his adversaries. Alas, he’s a barely formed creation, with no backstory to speak of nor defining traits outside his defiant stoutness. This is a failure not of performance but of writing, and the script (by Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Arash Amel, and Ritchie) treats everyone and everything else in similarly shallow fashion.

Permitted to assemble his own team, Mach-Phillipps opts for a ragtag collection of equally brave mercenaries. Anders Lassen (Reacher’s Alan Ritchson), “The Danish Hammer,” cuts the hearts out of his enemies and is skilled with a bow and arrow. Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding) is a frogman who’s an expert with explosives. Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) is a young Irish seaman. And Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer) is a master strategist who’s currently in the custody of the Nazis, which prompts March-Phillipps to demand that, before they make their way to Fernando Po, they first break Appleyard out of confinement. That they do, and with such murderous ease that, as with an introductory scuffle with Nazis aboard a sailboat, no tension ever materializes.

A movie like The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare demands odds-stacked-against-them scenarios and boisterous banter between its motley heroes. On both counts, it falls woefully short. Ritchie operates in a middle register that’s neither grim nor goofy enough to resonate; that goes double for the film’s concurrent storyline about British operatives Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González) and Mr. Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) getting things ready for Mach-Phillipps’ arrival on Fernando Po. While Gonzalez is a magnetic screen presence and exudes sultriness during a singing routine, Stewart and Heron’s efforts to keep a sadistic Nazi (Til Schweiger) busy as they prepare to destroy the Duchess prove downright sluggish. The proceedings grow drearier still once the duo truly springs into action, skulking about and setting explosive charges in a manner that’s hackneyed beyond belief and, consequently, unworthy of one’s full, undivided attention.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’s lifelessness is epitomized by a scene in which March-Phillips and company encounter a British destroyer that wants to halt their mission, and then slip away without incident thanks to the oh-so-convenient arrival of a U-boat. There’s something altogether tossed off about the film, including with regards to its dialogue, which is only notable for its wholesale absence of witty or clever lines. Where there should be bawdy macho repartee, there’s merely dull exposition. If Cavill, Ritchson, and González’s charm allows them to emerge from this dreariness unscathed, others—such as Pettyfer, given nothing to do except suffer jokes about being tortured via electrodes attached to his nipples—don’t fare as well.

With little interest in imaginatively juicing his true-events tale, Ritchie resorts to staging a nighttime finale in the murky dark and with lots of ho-hum fireballs. Lacking any sense of humor or peril, it’s just a slog headed toward a preordained happily-ever-after in which March-Phillipps saves the day by pulling off an even riskier feat than the one he was assigned, and Churchill rewards his spies with a culinary feast. As befitting such a leaden undertaking, Churchill says The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’s title at film’s conclusion. The problem, however, is that the director’s latest isn’t ungentlemanly enough—or, for that matter, as assured, colorful, and charismatic as he and everyone else involved thinks it is.