This is my kind of Guy Ritchie, leaning into the pulp sensibilities of genre movies with style, swagger, and cheek, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is his grand ode to the WWII men-on-a-mission capers. While reportedly based upon the recently divulged secret files of Winston Churchill, the heavily fictionalized account of Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) assembling a team of experts to blow up Nazi plots treats the men like super heroes. For the first hour or so, the movie is rollicking, with the team mirthfully mowing down Nazis at a steady pace, chumming it up, and having a fine time. It’s only after that midpoint where some of the movie’s flaws start to drag and become more apparent. First of all, an extended mission of getting close to a Head Nazi (Til Sweiger) and abscond with some ships off the coast of Africa makes for a very labored stay but without much fekt in progression or complication. I was feeling wanderlust to get moving. Next, the entire team feels unstoppable to the point of becoming boring. They never break a sweat fighting and casually plow through their enemies, so the entertainment value of the slaughter begins to ebb when it all feels too easy for too long. You can do an entire movie of Nazi destruction from the hands of an unstoppable force, like Sisu, but the bloody appeal of that movie is its creative carnage. We needed more variation in the action and set pieces. These gents have no formidable adversary, no overwhelming odds, and no real bouts of bad luck to thwart them. Alan Ritchson (TV’s Reacher) is a hulking mountain of a man, and he has such poise and charisma to be the breakout character, and Ritchie just fumbles it. Ritchie has excelled in the past with easily imbuing striking and memorable personality and conflicts with his Cockney crime larks, and I was missing more of that peppy style and unique flavor. Don’t get me wrong, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare has great promise and entertainment value, but it unfortunately creates its own ceiling, stalling in the second half and failing to develop intriguing challenges to test its underwritten crew.

Nate’s Grade: B-