The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: A Review
Let's discus the ol' boys over a spot of tea!
I'm blessed with many abilities, but the one I never got great at was speaking all British like my UK heroes, Pete and Bas. Any attempt I make at sounding like a drill rapper or a posh person who went to THE boarding school Eton College would be terrible. The entire student body would know it was a joke and haze the hell out of me.
Luckily, I can go to the Alamo Drafthoue and watch a series of guys with non-American accents commit some of the most hilariously ungentlemanly acts imaginable. There are shootings, stabbings, boxing, and all manner of murder both big and small. As they say in this movie multiple times, "If they're caught by the Brits they go to jail. If they're caught by the jerries it's torture and death.”
Great stakes!
As you could tell from the fabulous trailer they put out for this, you knew this was a World War II movie. It features all your favorite actors playing people from the past you've heard about as an American. After the film tells you this is a true story based on the writings of British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill that were unearthed in 2016, he and eventual "James Bond" author Ian Fleming need to have a conversation with Gus March-Phillips (played by Zack Snyder's Superman but much happier) about blowing up some German U-boats.
They want America to “jump into a European war.” The blitzkrieg is on. England is getting half of its supplies thanks to U-boats, people are starving in the daytime, and getting bombed every night. Surrender is quickly becoming the question, but Mr. Churchill won't hear of it. Churchill knows what happens if you give in to fascism. You give up to Germany and eat sausages until Hitler wants to kill you dead and find new people to murder. That's always how fascism works. If only we understood this here in the United States.
That's when March-Philips has that scene about how he can do the seemingly impossible job once he puts his team together. That team is Anders Lassen (played by Thad Castle), Freddy Alvarez (played by the hot hubby in Crazy Rich Asians), and Henry Haynes (played by a dude literally named "Hero"). On the way to their mission in Africa, they have to stop on the way to pick up "mastermind" Geoffery Appleyard (played by Alex Pettyfer who looks like a tear from God) who has his nipples clamped to a battery. Meanwhile, they are backed up by their assets, the sexy woman who's there to seduce, Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González played by Darling from Baby Driver or Madame M from Hobbes and Shaw), and the first Black guy in the movie, Heron (played by Babs Olusanmokun a.k.a. Dr. M'Benga on Star Trek: Brave New Worlds)
Now it's time for these good-looking people to blow up some U-boats!
At least that's what we think is supposed to happen, but this movie quickly shows off its other plans as people need to communicate with Morse code! That's part of the fun of dangerous missions like this. With The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, the questions you ask are the following:
Who's going to kill the most Germans?
Who's amongst these brave men will die?
I don't want to ruin anything, but the answers won't surprise you, and it almost doesn't matter. I'm not sure if British kids get to learn about these "heroes" who essentially started the modern idea of British Secret Intelligence. They inspired James Bond! The job is to go out and murder for their country.
While I have seen a lot of violent movies since I started working on reviews, this movie isn't violent in the way Monkey Man or even Drive Away Dolls was. Things creep up and unsettle you in those movies. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is violent on a level with Captain America. It doesn’t matter if you’re reading the comics, watching Captain America (1990), or Captain America the First Avenger. Whatever you watch that has Steve Rogers in the past stomping Nazis, is the level of violence in this movie. Nazis lose about 450 guys on screen. The heroes... Well, let's just say you start noticing the coolness of kills more than anything those kills mean. It’s good filmmaking.
One thing I will say about The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is they use all their characters. It's the director, Guy Ritchie's staple. He's also the director of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and... that Aladdin movie with Will Smith. He's made a lot of films but tells the best stories in his crime comedies like Snatch or The Gentleman. That's what this movie is. It's a crime comedy about a bunch of bastards teaming up in World War II to kill a lot of Germans, and not following any responses to stop what they’re doing. All the men and the single woman get opportunities to flirt, play, and participate, and it's fun to watch. It gets ridiculous at the end, but I was hooked and already knew what I was looking at.
Also, they did the OPPOSITE of Civil War and avoided killing all the dark-skinned people they enlisted to help. In a movie that stars "The Author of James Bond," a series where people protest even making the character Black, I was surprised to see all these dark people and African languages I caught in this film. Homework was done. I didn't expect a lot but I got more than I bargained for.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is great fun. I think the less British you are the more fun it will be for you. The movie being "based on a true story" doesn't really matter if I’ve never heard of them. Think of it like someone made a movie about Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos busting out of a German work camp together. World War II is the “fun” war. It’s got tanks, planes, and ships with huge cannons. World War I was a horror show, and everything since WWII America in particular has made a mess of people’s lives (see Cambodia). Scores of people die in actual conflicts, but looking back with little connection to any of these “true” events to WWII has trained us to see murderers as heroes as long as they are killing lots of Nazis. As long as they do it all for our cousins in England what happens is alright. The less political you make it, the more fun The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare will be for you.
Though as political as I make things, I still had fun. I hope you will too.
Now for that tea…