'Ungentlemanly Warfare' review: birth of British covert operations

Guy Ritchie's latest work, the clumsily titled “The War Office Ungentlemanly,” is both his “Inglourious Basterds” and his “Dunkirk.” With his adaptation of the 2016 non-fiction book “The War Office Ungentlemanly: How Churchill's Secret Warriors Set Europe Aflame and gave rise to modern black operations” by war historian and reporter Damien Lewis, Ritchie borrows the nod style Quentin Tarantino's postmodern retro to pay homage to real-life British war heroes with the same reverence that Christopher Nolan paid to the heroes of Dunkirk.

The prolific Ritchie began with daring crime comedies (“Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” “Snatch”) and has dabbled in historical bombast (“King Arthur,” “Sherlock”), Disney remakes (“Aladdin”), thrillers (“Wrath of Man,” “The Covenant”) and, with diminishing returns, more recent crime comedies (“The Gentlemen,” “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre”). But he finds a good rhythm in this entertaining, not-quite World War II comedy. There's joy in Nazi murder and exceptionally dry humor that's English through and through, but Ritchie achieves a tone that walks the line between seriousness and self-aware humor.

If Tarantino uses a stylistic pastiche of exploitation films and spaghetti westerns of the 1960s and 1970s to rewrite history to his own taste, Ritchie borrows Tarantino's approach to perform a kind of pulpy myth-making and celebrate a group of Overlooked real-life war heroes. (who may have inspired Ian Fleming's James Bond). Christian Benstead's score is made up of Ennio Morricone-style whistles and guitars.

Although not named as such in the film, which is heavily imagined and fictionalized with the addition of some new characters, the script, written by Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Arash Amel and Ritchie, essentially follows the 1942 special operations mission known. as “Operation Postmaster.” Worried about interference from German U-boats strangling England's ability to receive supplies, Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear in the toughest makeup job seen in a long time) gives the green light for Brigadier Gubbins' “M” to hire the right man. to attack. an Italian freighter loaded with submarine supplies. Paralyze the submarines, open the canal.

The right man for the job is the imprisoned Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill), and he assembles his team of expert rogues, including Danish warrior Anders Lessen (Alan Ritchson), explosives expert Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding), and sailor Irishman Henry Hayes. (Hero Fiennes Tiffin). On their way to the Spanish island of Fernando Po, off the coast of equatorial Africa, they will have to make a stop to pick up Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer), imprisoned as a prisoner of war in a Nazi outpost on La Palma, in the Canary Islands.

His on-the-ground links in Fernando Po are British secret agents Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González), a half-Jewish actress and singer trained in the espionage art of seduction, whose target is a sadistic and powerful Nazi. called Luhr (until Schweiger). They also have an ally in the Eton-educated “Prince of Fernando Po” Kambili Kalu (Danny Sapani) and his private militia.

While Ritchie structures the film around tense conversations and outbursts of violence, “The War Office Ungentlemanly” has a slightly languid pace in the middle and doesn't generate as much suspense. In an opening sequence, we see our ad hoc special forces team dispatch a group of German sailors with a bit of amateur theatrics and a dose of their trademark firepower. Nobody sweats, nobody raises their voice, they never run out of ammunition and even in extreme situations there is time for funny Britishisms, smarmy jokes and homoerotic jokes.

Ritchie positions these heroes as highly capable and absolutely untouchable warriors, taking down Nazis without even ruffling their mustaches (hot tip: don't Google these guys if you want to keep the good times rolling). It's all part of the fantasy he weaves through style and references. This is not an authentic depiction of World War II, it is an imagination of what this story would be like told in a 1970s exploitation film. It is the type of movie starring Rick Dalton, the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in “Once Upon a Time.” once…in Hollywood.” Gonzalez is not wrong as English spy Marjorie Stewart because she plays the type of actress who would play Stewart opposite Dalton.

Even if the heavy stylization makes the film feel a little arrogant, there's real affection that comes through in Ritchie's homage to these early special forces soldiers, turning them into larger-than-life cinematic heroes and allowing the audience to have fun. The only thing left is to want to spend more time with this team. Who knows, maybe Ritchie will rewrite the story to his liking if there is another installment of a gentleman's war.

Katie Walsh is a film critic for the Tribune News Service.