Review by C.J. Bunce

Have you ever wished someone would make a classic war movie, the kind that once starred John Wayne or William Holden as the soldier hero, leading a ragtag assemblage of warriors into harm’s way against the world’s worst villains?  We haven’t seen new movies for decades like Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, Von Ryan’s Express, Stalag 17, or The Dirty Dozen.  Until now.  It turns out the master of all sorts of genres made one of this century’s best war movies.  But you probably missed it because it wasn’t promoted well.  It’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, now streaming free for anyone on Roku.  Admittedly the previews made it look like some gung-ho revisionist fantasy, like Wonder Woman storming the trenches in WWI Europe in Wonder Woman or Tarantino offering up a wartime fairy tale with a team taking down Hitler in Inglourious Basterds.  No, director Guy Ritchie keeps his multi-national team of heroes fighting the Axis more grounded in reality.  But that doesn’t have to mean they aren’t suave and dashing and heroic.  The result is finally a worthy 21st century attempt at a classic war movie.  And it’s based on real events.

The story is based on Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII, by Damien Lewis–not to be confused with the actor of the same name.  The writer is known for many over-hyped “explosive true story” books about combat.  But compare the performances with John Wayne in The Sands of Iwo Jima or Otto Preminger in Stalag 17.  Guy Ritchie uses the same formula here for his heroes and villains.  The story follows Rory Kinnear as a troubled Winston Churchill, deciding he needed to work around his own British leadership to end Germany’s success with their U-boats.  His plan pulls in a young Ian Fleming, played by Freddie Fox, and his own pre-Bondverse boss “M,” played by Cary Elwes.  They have already started a plan with two operatives: Eiza González plays Marjorie Stewart, a spy working as an actress in Spain, and Strange New Worlds’ own Babs Olusanmokun as a spy known as Heron, watching Nazis in one of many business he uses as fronts, also in Spain.

M handpicks a strike squad–The Dirty Dozen style–and we learn up front that, like his first two operatives, each has a personal reason (usually a murdered relative) for wanting to bring the Nazis to their knees.  An explosive, opening scene shows viewers what they are in for: Henry Cavill (Man of Steel, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) is Gus March-Phillips, pulled from jail to lead the squad.  Alan Ritchson (Reacher, Fast X) is the Dane Anders Lassen, who knows more than a hundred ways to kill a man, and demonstrates many.  The Gentlemen and Snake Eyes’ Henry Golding is Freddy Alvarez, who’s good at blowing things up.  And Young Sherlock star Hero Fiennes Tiffin is Henry Hayes, March-Phillips’ protege.  But first they need to break-out from a Nazi jail the mastermind, Geoffrey Appleyard, played by Magic Mike’s Alex Pettyfer.  Danny Sapani (Black Panther, Killing Eve) plays a late-breaking arrival, a ship captain who arrives to aid the strike squad with his own team.  The casting of everyone is perfect.  In a 1960s war movie this would have been quite the dream team, then cast with the leads from The Magnificent Seven or the like.