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The reviews are in for Guy Ritchie and Henry Cavill’s new action-comedy The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – but they’re decidedly mixed.
The new action caper, loosely based on the real events of Operation Postmaster during World War 2 and the Damien Lewis book Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII, stars Cavill as Gus March-Phillipps, a soldier leading a force tasked with a daring raid on Italian ships off the coast of the then-Spanish island of Fernado Po.
Unfortunately, critics aren’t all sold on The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, with Screen Daily calling it a “smirking, shallow action-comedy” and a "total mission failure." Ouch.
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich, meanwhile, lauds it as Ritchie’s best movie since 2015’s The Man From UNCLE (which also starred Cavill), but says it has "all swagger and no style."
"Though not Guy Ritchie's best film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare has enough slick style and exhilarating action to be a helluva fun ride," Screen Rant’s Molly Freeman wrote.
Others, such as Variety, suggest however that Guy Ritchie is in a "tamer, slightly more traditional mode" for what amounts to "straightforward set-pieces."
The Hollywood Reporter remarks that the movie – which also stars Alan Ritchson, Eiza Gonzalez, and Henry Golding – is let down by its execution, which "doesn’t maximize the story’s potential."
