The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare - Despite its non-blockbuster Status, Still an Entertaining War Spy Action Movie

I was only aware about this movie when its trailer was shown frequently in the past few weeks. And after being mentioned that the movie would be released two or three times before, finally it came true last Friday. However, it did not play in that many theaters and it was quite a challenge to see the film. Luckily it did play in a cinema that we wanted to see another movie. So my wife and I had another movie marathon day on Sunday. Without further ado, let's get on it then.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in the year 1941 during World War II where the Nazi Germans were trying to occupy the whole Europe with England as the remaining country still fighting. Brigadier Colin Gubbins aka M (Cary Elwes - Rebel Moon, Saw movies etc) initiated a black ops mission to sink the supply boat for German submarines that have been disrupting British aids. As it was an unsanctioned operation, M proposed to appoint a daring person to lead the operation, i.e. Gus March-Phillipps (Henry Cavill - Argylle, Enola Holmes etc) with the approval of Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear - The Imitation Game, The Diplomat TV series etc).

In order to do the mission, Gus enlisted the help from other people he believed would be perfect for the job, including the violent Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson - Fast X, Titans TV series etc), bomb expert Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding - Snake Eyes: G. I. Joe Origins, A Simple Favor etc), Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin - After movies etc) and strategist Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer - I Am Number Four, The I-Land TV series etc). There would also be support on land by agents Richard Heron (Babs Olusanmokun - Star Trek: Strange New Worlds TV series etc) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González - 3 Body Problem TV series, Godzilla Vs. Kong etc). 

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

The reason I was interested in seeing the film was due to the names of Guy Ritchie (The Gentlemen, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre etc) and Henry Cavill, plus the seemingly interesting premise. While my wife was more eager after her sister told her it was entertaining. And it turned out that the movie was indeed enjoyable to us. It may not be a huge blockbuster film that had been flooding our theaters in the past few weeks but it was still fun for us.

The characters was the factor that made this movie more pleasing, particularly the intelligent Gus and his habit of taking things that he liked from other people, and Lassen the big guy who loved killing people brutally and the chemistry among the group. The part where we heard the name M introduced was a nice surprise. Now even if the distinct Guy Ritchie style did not seem to be really apparent to me, but I thought the story telling was still pretty intelligent. There was a bit of suspense during the mission and the way they had to improvise with some humor along the way was fun as well. Which is why my wife did not feel this to be a full war movie and was not too stressful compared to the usual war films that were more depressing.

This movie had a duration of around 2 hours which included closing credits that showed us photos of the real people who were involved in the operation. It was pretty amazing for me, especially the part mentioning about Gus March-Phillipps. But after reading more on the internet, I found out that the movie was a heavily fictionalized version of the operation, even though it really did exist as per the book Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII written by Damien Hill. Nevertheless, it did not reduce the fact that these were brave people doing dangerous missions for their country. 

In addition to the names I mentioned above, there were also few other characters in the movie such as Nazi commander Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger - Inglourious Basterds etc), Kambi (Danny Sapani - Halo TV series etc) and Ian Fleming (Yes that Ian Fleming, writer of James Bond) played by Freddie Fox. Aside from the characters and story, the action was quite well crafted. There were some heavy violence like shots to the head, multiple knife stabbing and so on, but surprisingly to me, it was classified for 13+ in Indonesia while rated R in the US likely due to those obvious brutality.

Overall this was an enjoyable movie for me and my wife due to the semi spy story set in the World War II with some humor and nice actions. Those who are fans of Guy Ritchie would most likely enjoy this but people expecting a film full of actions might find it a bit short (the guy sitting in our row might have been bored by it as he fell into deep sleep and snored for quite some time). It seem critics were not too disappointed while audience seemed to like the film, although its box office performance might not be satisfying enough. Anyway if you like the attributes I mentioned above, you might enjoy this like we did.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars