The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

"Darkest Hour" this ain't. I went to see this movie Sunday afternoon at the mall cinema in Detroit Lakes, Minn. and my enjoyment was untouched by lump-in-the-throat sentimentality. It was a non-stop thrill ride of action, comedy, suspense and sex appeal, featuring four-time Bond film actor Rory Kinnear in prosthetic jowls as a Winston Churchill who is about to have his brief taken from him and who risks it all on a daring (not to say daft), secret mission to destroy the supply chain to Hitler's U-boats, open up the Atlantic to break the Nazis' blockade of the U.K. and land U.S. troops in the European theater of World War II. Allegedly (according to a title card in the opening scenes of Guy Ritchie's latest movie) it's all based on a file that was only declassified about a decade ago. Hitler and his top men – a Brigadier significantly known as "M" and his aide, future James Bond creator Ian Fleming – choose a gaol-bird named Gus March-Phillips (a later title card claims he was the inspiration for Bond) to head this mission, which is not only secret but entirely disavowed. So, as they say not once but twice in the movie, if they're caught by the British, it's prison for sure; if they're caught by the Germans, it's torture and death. Why Gus? Because, although he is a rascal, rule-breaker and allergic to following chain of command, men will follow him. And he chooses some pretty wild and crazy guys to follow him.

I won't bore you with the biographies of the other members of the team, other than to say in general that they constitute one stupendously beautiful woman (who, apparently, gets married to Gus in later days) and a rogues' gallery of male sex appeal. Besides sometime Superman and ex-witcher Henry Cavill as March-Phillips, they include muscle-god Alan Ritchson (of "Reacher" and "Titans" fame), Nigerian-American actor Babs Olusanmokun (Dr. M'Benga on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), Mexican beauty Eiza González (Baby Driver, Alita: Battle Angel), Alex Pettyfer (a sometime Alex Rider, also of I Am Number Four and Magic Mike), Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians, Snake Eyes), Hero Fiennes Tiffin (who once played a very young Lord Voldemort, and more recently starred in the steamy After films), the androgynous Freddie Fox (Worried About the Boy, Cucumber) as Fleming, Brazilian actor Henrique/Henry Zaga (Teen Wolf) as a Spanish officer, German actor Til Schweiger (Inglourious Basterds) as the main heavy, and best of all, Cary Elwes (Twister, The Princess Bride) as M.

Since I let that "best of all" slip, I might as well get straight to the Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The opening scene in which M recruits March-Phillips. Cary Elwes's eye-rolling is actually what makes the scene for me, as M gamely puts up with Gus's blatant misbehavior. It also helps set the tone for a story in which civilization hangs on the actions of a group of very uncivilized people who, where Nazis are concerned, cheerfully commit acts of extreme violence at an incredible rate. (2) You get a goodly eyeful of this violence during the cutting-out expedition on the Atlantic island of La Palma, where the Germans are interrogating Pettyfer's character. Ritchson's character goes especially savage, shooting arrows that go right through one guy to kill another and finally ripping the heart out of a Nazi's chest while Pettyfer calmly looks on, patiently awaiting his liberation from a torture device. (3) The insane, yet brilliant, plan by which Gus's tiny team, augmented by a handful of burly islanders, takes on a garrison of 200-plus Nazis, plus the crew of an Italian ship and two tugboats, plus the allegedly neutral Spanish forces that nominally control the island, all at the same time. It's a complicated caper and, of course, not all of it goes to plan. In fact, everything goes absolutely insane, as befits a movie by the director (and in most cases, writer) of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Wrath of Man and The Gentlemen, for some illustrative examples.

However, let's not also forget that Ritchie also brought us the horrendous Swept Away, Revolver, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, the so-so live-action Aladdin and the only modestly successful RocknRolla. When he's on his game, he's on. When he's not, the results are dreadful. So, going to one of his movies is a crap-shoot. In my opinion, however, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a winner.