Review by C.J. Bunce
You could have bet Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre wasn’t going to win any awards based on that clunky title. Now streaming on Peacock, viewers can see for themselves why it had a bad launch–the bad guys are Ukrainians, and the timing of using the nation as an unknown quantity for Western movies audiences unfortunately arrived just as Russia launched a war against them. The rest, as they say, is history. But it’s easy enough to realize why scripts plug in fake names for evil nations and that the country was never going to be integral to the spy story, action, and comedy–or viewers’ enjoyment–of Guy Ritchie’s brand of stylish action. So if you’d wished Ritchie had made a sequel to his adaptation of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., or you just like a good Jason Statham or Hugh Grant movie, you could find worse ways to spend two hours this Memorial Day weekend than catching this “good enough” action flick.
Unlike The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which for everyone but diehard fans of the 1960s TV series was as good or better than half the James Bond movies, Operation Fortune lacks Ritchie’s typical knack for presenting international cinematic style in a clever way, as well as his way of integrating emotional music, either via the score or vintage pop songs. If you compare the experience to something like Netflix’s direct-to-TV action movie 6 Underground, you’re looking at movies on par with each other, and Operation Fortune easily surpasses even more heavily marketed fare like Red Notice or Spenser Confidential.
So what’s it about? Jason Statham plays Orson Fortune–a hero name only someone like Ritchie would even think of. Hugh Grant, who plays billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds, even mocks Fortune about it. Fortune is a super spy who only needs a team of two others: Aubrey Plaza as an even cockier than she usually plays tech pro named Sarah Fidel, and singer Bugzy Malone as J.J. Davies–both sophisticated human tools that can get any job done. The story MacGuffin is as unknown to the players as it is to the audience: something called The Handle. Is it a super tank or pile of automatic weapons? Is it something worse?
Quick rewind: As with many Ritchie stories, every step involves layers and a measured development followed by a quick payoff. Fortune is first hired by Nathan Jasmine to retrieve The Handle. Jasmine is played by Cary Elwes– Elwes leaning into the kind of suave man behind the curtain he made a success of as the recurring spy Pierre Despereaux in the Psych series. For fans of any of these actors, they are all simply fun to watch in roles like this. To add some British edge to things, Jasmine is hired by the British government, in the form of Eddie Marsan as a direct report to the Prime Minister. If The Handle is a superweapon and the PM is directly involved, these are the stakes of any good Bond movie.
It turns out The Handle is, indeed, a superweapon, just not what you’d think, and far closer to the current international climate and reality than Ritchie would have guessed when he inked that script. In many ways Elon Musk and his recent plays and schemes in international and national politics are mirrored by Hugh Grant’s billionaire and a few of his software firm-tied billionaire friends. Taking over the world’s banking software to bring it all down, coupled with the Ukraine references, might be enough to make it all too close to 2020s reality for entertainment for some.
But that’s the spy piece. This is also an action movie and a comedy. Count Statham as your guy to deliver the action piece, with sufficient charisma and nicely choreographed punching and guns ablazing. The surprise on the comedy side is a role a studio would often give to Channing Tatum. This time it went to Josh Hartnett, just as he’s getting his name out there more with movies like M. Night Shyamalan’s excellent thriller Trap. Hartnett plays the daft Danny Francesco, a movie star tapped by Fortune as the ruse to get detailed information about The Handle from Hugh Grant’s bad boy billionaire, who is in it all for a big commission to land a buyer.
Enter the other level of the show, which both adds some dimension while dragging things down. That’s the parallel play, under the direction of Fortune enemy “Mike” (played by Peter Ferdinando) who is always one step ahead of Fortune’s plans.
You may also be surprised to find this as showcasing some of Hugh Grant’s best acting work. Grant’s character and the spy-fi theme is really all that ties this back to Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie. But with a little better planning it may have worked as a more worthy follow-up for the writer-director.
Light on drama, heavy on Statham action, and with some humor, especially from Hartnett. If that’s what you’re after, check out Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, now streaming on Peacock.
