With his fleet of U-boats, Adolf Hitler has blocked the US entry into the European War and is set to have total control of the Atlantic as his Navy continues to expand.  With the UK continually assaulted by air, Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear) has few options left so he begins to work outside of the Parliamentary procedure.  Placing his trust in Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) and his ragtag team of unsavory characters, they rendezvous with Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) at the Nazi port at Fernando Po where Duchessa d’Aosta, a freighter carrying U-boat supplies, is docked.  Their off-the-books mission is to destroy the ship, but if they are caught by the British Navy, Parliament will not be coming to their defense, and if they are caught by the Germans, they will certainly be tortured until their death. 

Guy Ritchie directs The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, an adaptation of Damien Lewis’ book that chronicles the too-wild-too-be-true mission that was recently declassified from Churchill’s journals in 2016.  Ritchie cowrote the script with Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Arash Amel, crafting a bold and popping 120 minute narrative for Lionsgate.  The film is a blend of genres incorporating a Western-inspired score by Christopher Benstead, beautiful landscapes captured by Ed Wild’s lens, and stunning costumes by Loulou Bontemps. 

The film starts at sea with the handsomely mustachioed Gus and rippling Anders (Alan Ritchson) posing as two Swedish fishermen out for an afternoon sail when their boat is boarded by a Nazi commander.  It sets the stage for the tone in which Ritchie is going to handle the rest of the film; a loose and fun, anything-goes approach that marries action and comedy in a perfect union.  While it would be hard to imagine a more bombastic way to open the film, it does unfortunately roll back the clock a bit to fill in some gaps and catch audiences up on what is happening.  As Gus is being briefed, we get to learn a little more about his eccentricities. He is a character who has an affinity for the finer things in life such as indulging in liquor, cigars, and fancy coats; and it is hard not to be envious of the wardrobes which Bontemps provides everyone in the film.  It is a bit of a drag, but quickly Ritchie pivots to a train car where Heron and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González) bicker about the troubling state of haute cuisine should Hitler succeed in conquering all of Europe. 

If Gus and his gang are responsible for much of the action in Ministry, Heron and Marjorie bring the intrigue.  For some audiences, this may be a drag on the film, and admittedly, the pair is saddled with some heavy and repetitive exposition, but this pairing really helps to frame the narrative, set our expectations, and it is all delivered in a high stakes environment when even just the slightest hint in unauthenticity will spell peril.  There are many close calls, and when they are really in the thick of it all, they command some of the most thrilling sequences of the entire film with nary a bullet being spent.  

Ministry is far from gun agnostic, and though their use does not adhere to a specific style guide as other action films have begun to adopt, Ritchie still knows how to thrill audiences by making things go bang.  From automatic rifles, to pistols with silencers, and more than just a handful of explosives, Ritchie’s “ministry” moves with bravado precision across Nazi territory.  An immediate, yet ultimately disingenuous, comparison can be drawn between this and Quentin Tarantino’s first dabbling in revisionist history, Inglourious Basterds (2009), but that is not entirely fair to Ministry.  Though Gus’ work in the War was Ian Fleming’s inspiration for James Bond, the film feels more akin to the high-stakes action romps of Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible series.  It is both fun and funny while never letting the characters act like they are in a loose comedy; for them, it very much is a life-and-death scenario they are working through so even in the more absurd moments, we recognize the gravity of the events. 

At only two hours, the film does struggle a bit with ensemble management which is a shame because the cast is all quite intriguing and everyone involved are really leaning into thier roles.  Two of the most scorned by this are Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) and Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding), an Irish Nazi-hater and the team’s explosive expert, respectively. Thankfully, they are never reduced to cannon fodder as some larger ensemble action pieces tend to treat their more ancillary characters, but they are always playing second fiddle to Gus, Anders, and Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer), a British POW and master planner who needs to be rescued by Gus et al. before they make their final push towards Fernando Po. The script does try to color in their characters a bit, but it does not feel like we really know much about them. To be fair, we do not know much about any of the action-focused characters, but the film allows that core three more time to develop in between hails of gunfire and then cutting back to the UK with Churchill instead of letting the team commiserate in the aftermath. There is a unity of purpose here, for sure, but we are missing out on some of the camaraderie that would have really elevated the storytelling.  

Despite this, the extended finale is still quite thrilling.  Some may grow annoyed with how dark it is shot, but hopefully the projector bulb is still under warranty so not too much detail should be lost.  Editor, James Herbert, has no easy task cutting and balancing the multiple storylines at work in addition to keeping Ritchie’s frenetic pace, but it is all quite legible.  We never feel lost in the fray so we can follow along with each beat, twist, and turn.  The final moments do feel as if they run a little long, but that is more because we are just waiting for the escape instead of fighting for it, and what should be a triumphant sequence – and it is – we do not get to see too much celebration, and what injuries our heroes do suffer we do not see meaningfully addressed.  It is the one real moment of tonal sloppiness in a film that is otherwise unafraid to push the limits that leaves us feeling unfulfilled in the moment but thankfully, not with the experience as a whole. 

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare may not be as globetrotting as the films that the real-life story went on to inspire, but the closed-circuit nature works in the film’s favor. Films about World War II are as old as the war itself and Ministry is already at least the second of at least four titles to be released this year alone; Steve McQueen’s Blitz, James Hawes’ One Life, and Marc Forster’s White Bird. It can be hard to stand out in such a crowd, and even harder to act in a way that is not showing disrespect towards the victims of the war or utilizing the tragedy to boost your own narrative. Ritchie’s film, by staying far away from the trenches of war and somewhat removed from Hitler’s gaze, can operate in a much more traditional action/thriller/comedy. While some may find that as a reduction of the war, others may find themselves more willing to revel in the crowd-pleasing act of – to quote Lt. Aldo Raine and contradict an earlier argument about an unfair comparison to Inglourious Basterds – “killin’ Nazis.”