“Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre” (2023)
Spy thriller. Without the thrills.
Spy thriller. Without the thrills.
It’s been a quarter of a century now since Hertfordshire born Guy Ritchie blew away cinema audiences the world over with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. He’d do so once more in the Millennium year of 2000 with the hugely enjoyable Snatch before being Swept Away with his love affair and marriage to Madonna. I loved Revolver and RocknRolla even whilst everyone else seemingly scorned them as overblown and confusing befuddling messes before the English filmmaker hit pay dirt and critical acclaim once more with the Sherlock Holmes franchise. He then dipped his toe into another franchise, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. which along with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and The Gentlemen allowed me to introduce my film loving teenage son to the films of a beloved Englishman and erstwhile enfant terrible of Hollywood.
Thus Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre makes for a baker’s dozen of films and sadly, the least appealing, recommended or re-watchable of the dirty dozen that came before it. The comedy took an enormous time to land and whilst it was circling and hanging awkwardly in the air I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen Jason Statham does his rogue, anti-hero hand-to-hand combat heroics before, many times before, and Hugh Grant too was reprising his deliberately slimy, untrustworthy, over the top cockney character before, but most worrying of all, was the fact I couldn’t shake the feeling it was all some kind of parody, a send up and mash up if you will of so many films that have come before it.
This is your standard fare of a McGuffin and a circling and competing teams of spies, rogues, vagabonds and the enormously wealthy all of whom we see traipsing around the world amid the glitz and the glamour of London and Los Angeles, Morocco and Madrid. There’s a James Bond feel to Statham’s central role supported by the feel and look of Ethan Hunt’s technical back-up team as he solves yet another impossible mission. Stretching the tenuous links to far, far superior films, I’d even proffer that Cary Elwes’ character “Nathan” borders on the awkwardly straight laced “Basil Exposition” of Austin Powers fame, and so brilliantly brought to life by Michael York. Nathan doesn’t necessarily lay out the coming plot as you’ll be too disengaged to notice, but Elwes excels in a rather befuddled and bemused way.
With Eddie Marsan simmering in a background cameo within a cloak of Governmental secrecy, and Josh Hartnett very good until he’s effectively dropped from the film before being reinserted when needed, it falls to Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) to almost save a rather dire and disinteresting film that I couldn’t help feeling I’d seen before.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 250 blog articles (with 500+ individual film reviews) within my film library from which to choose:
“Mother!” (2017)
Darren Aronofsky and a descent into hell.medium.com
“Women Talking” (2022)
“In that gaping silence was the real horror”.medium.com
“A Man Called Otto” (2022)
Underwhelming “As Good As It Gets” for the 21st Century.medium.com