Action Director Guy Ritchie’s film breaks his personal best for highest body count in this film based on a real secret mission, named Operation Postmaster, undertaken during the early days of WWII. The story has Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear) along with military officials including the future James Bond author Ian Fleming (Freddie Fox) green lighting a covert, unauthorized foray into enemy territory. The assignment went to a coterie of misfits and criminals whose mission is to take out the German’s U-Boat facility off the African coast on the tiny island of Fernando Po. But it gets more involved.
Guy Ritchie produced as well as co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson Arash based on the 2014 book “Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII” by Damien Lewis. Jerry Bruckheimer, also known for explosive drama, is Executive Producer enlisting Ritchie to take the directing helm. The accents are a little forced and the dialogue a bit weak. Very fictionalized, you get Ritchie’s comedic touch along with the serious drama. And the rest of this cast of characters are definitely characters.
German submarine attacks are choking off armaments and food supplies from getting to Britain. Without aid, and troops from America to bring down the Nazis, England will lose the war. Churchill wants to sink the supply ships in order to cripple the U-Boats’ domination of the shipping lanes. With his leadership in the balance, this is Churchill’s last stand. We wish that Churchill’s character had been more charismatic.
Anders Lassen, (Alan Ritchson – Reacher) plays the muscle-bound Danish expert with the bow and arrow who enjoys delivering deadly blows with knives and axes as well as with a quiver of arrows. He was so dedicated to his role, he took every moment he could while shooting Reacher to learn how to master his art as an archer.
Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) is calm, cool and collected as the head strategist with a refined handle-bar mustache curled up at the ends plus a beard. He’s also a cold blooded killer who relishes mowing down Nazis and collecting prize possessions right in front of his victim, like Ian Fleming’s lighter. His most prized grab was managing to lift a Gestapo officer’s full leather coat right off the Nazi’s body. March-Phillips won’t do this job without his best friend and strategist Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer). The crew takes an explosive detour to acquire Pettyfer’s services.
A shortcoming of the storytelling is in how routinely Cavill treats every obstacle and dangerous situation. This especially is true of his leisurely walks through the Nazi-infested base. He and his team are vastly outnumbered, but they all just calmly mow down hordes of enemy sailors. The result is that the story loses it’s grip on the tension in the combat. It’s all too matter-of-fact. Even the dialogue is under-played, delivered with a casual tone. There are an abundance of trite conversations punctuated with less than memorable one-liners.
But there’s plenty of action with hand-to-hand combat, canons, bombs and firearms that don’t seem to need to be reloaded very much. And if you’re keeping score, Ritchson never misses a shot with his bow and arrow.
Another important member of the team is spy, Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González), a gorgeous woman who has her own reason to distract and mislead the Nazi hierarchy at the U-Boat base. She is also a weapons expert with dead-on accuracy firing any type of gun. In her perfect makeup and a slinky satin dress, she sings an almost unrecognizable version of “Mack the Knife” to entice the most nasty Nazi of the bunch, Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger). His default facial expression is sneer.
Heron, (Babs Olusamokun) owner of the casino-bar on the island is calm, cool, collected and smart looking out for Marjorie and staying one step ahead of the Nazis until he turns into a lethal force himself.
The mission is to sink the big supply ship in the harbor. But when they find out the boat is reinforced and unsinkable, the bandits have to pivot to Plan B. Steal the ship, get it out of the harbor while detonation specialist, Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding) happily blowing up all the Nazi support craft so the bastards can’t give chase.
There’s lots of murderous mayhem with victims getting shot, stabbed, blown up, or impaled with arrows. While it’s bloody, the music which features a steady beat with a tonal quality reminiscent of an old Western, gives the gory proceedings a comic touch, something like Gunfight at the U-Boat Corral. You may wince here and there, but you’ll also get a few laughs. While we never tire seeing Nazis get what’s coming to them, this film fails to be little more than an exaggerated bloody caper.
Lionsgate Films 2 Hours R
