What do you get when you combine one of the most prolific action and stylized directors like Guy Ritchie with the three most magical words in all of cinema, “based on true events”? What you get is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and this movie doesn’t disappoint.
I got an opportunity to see an early release, and when those big words came up, “based on true events,” it blew my mind. The movie’s based on a book called Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII by author Damien Lewis. The British military recruits a small group of highly skilled soldiers to strike against German forces behind enemy lines during World War II, a mission that requires people who are particularly unscrupulous and absolutely out of their minds.
Mrs. Know-It-All and I went to see it. It was a packed theater, which I was really excited for, and it was our first time getting an opportunity to really see something that wasn’t superhero fare, that wasn’t a lot of this other stuff. I know we just watched Civil War, but this is something different. It isn’t genre, but it still had that same energy.
It’s everything you think it’s going to be and more. It’s one of those rare movies where the movie they sold you is exactly the movie I got. Having just come off the heels of Civil War, where I feel like I had a bit of a bait and switch, seeing The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was brilliant.
Who Guy Ritchie Brought With Him
It’s brought to you by director Guy Ritchie, written by Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Arash Amel, and it stars, of course, Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson. Alex Pettyfer is in it too, and by the way, he doesn’t look anything like himself. I had no clue it was him until I was going through looking for the specifics on all the different actors.
Then there’s Eiza González and Babs Olusanmokun. Those of you who watch Strange New Worlds, we love our good Doctor M’Benga. He’s in this, and he’s amazing. Cary Elwes, or what I affectionately call Despereaux if you’re a big Psych fan, plays Brigadier Gubbins, or M, if that sounds familiar. You have Rory Kinnear playing Winston Churchill. And then you’ve also got the amazing Freddie Fox, who plays Ian Fleming.
A lot of this type of stuff is what Ian Fleming based James Bond on. Specifically, at least they say, he based him a lot on the character of Gus March-Phillipps. I’m floored by this entire thing.
The War Isn’t Going Good
The war effort doesn’t go good. Hitler has basically said he wants unconditional surrender from Great Britain, and all of Churchill’s advisers are telling him, “Do it. This is our only chance to get out of this.” Remember, there are night raids happening. Great Britain’s being laid to waste every night by the German Luftwaffe coming through and dropping bombs.
So he’s faced with a very, very serious situation, and he tells his tightest, close-knit advisers, which includes Cary Elwes’s Brigadier Gubbins, or M, “I don’t care what it takes. You make this happen.” And this is going to require a particularly bad kind of people to do this thing.
They’ve got intel on the German U-boats, which are their submarines, and the submarines are the reason why America hasn’t gotten into the war yet, according to the movie. So they have to break the supply chain to the U-boats. The only way to do that is a little teeny tiny island they have to go to, where the Spanish, Italians, and Germans are all at, and they have this one ship called the Duchess. That’s where all the supplies happen. They have to go destroy the Duchess, and it’s essentially just shy of a suicide mission.
And M says, I think I might have the right person for you.
Operation Postmaster
It’s wonderful, because they bring in Henry Cavill, who plays Gus March-Phillipps. The funny thing is all these guys are super uncouth, but they speak so properly. So even though they’re doing these despicable things, they’re like, oh, pardon me, guv’nor, forgive me, sir. It’s just wonderful.
I think Rory Kinnear playing Churchill does a really good job. We’ve seen some really good Churchills in the past, of course, and he’s just another version of it, and he does wonderfully. He’s got to keep this whole thing under wraps, because they’re basically saying, if you don’t surrender, if you don’t take our advice, we’re going to tell Parliament to put you out of office. Great Britain wants to surrender. The whole war hinges on this mission. Operation Postmaster.
So the first thing Henry Cavill says is, well, I need this other guy, named Geoffrey Appleyard. That’s Alex Pettyfer. And they’re like, well, he’s already been captured, he’s over here. Okay, cool, we’ll go there on the way. And they’re like, what? So not only do they have this one dangerous mission, they’re going to have to do another dangerous mission first. And they’re posing as Swedish fishermen.
By the way, Alan Ritchson is doing an amazing Swedish accent, can I just tell you? His accent is stupid good. Everybody’s doing wonderful, but his character is so dope. He can use guns and stuff, but he likes to use a knife or a bow and arrow. And I don’t mean like a compound. I mean like a wooden bow and arrow. So bro is just devastating fools. It’s amazing.
The Spies, the Casino, and the Sadist
They go, they rescue Pettyfer, and meanwhile Eiza González and Babs are playing two British spies.
Eiza is playing a character named Marjorie Stewart, an actress who’s been trained to be an infiltrator, kind of a special ops whatever, to do whatever they need her to do. Babs Olusanmokun plays a guy named Heron, who has already spent the time to establish a business and everything else. He has a casino, a criminal enterprise. He’s really embedded himself into this particular area, so they’ve set the groundwork for a lot of stuff.
Then there’s Til Schweiger. Til Schweiger plays Heinrich Luhr, who’s the German head of everything here. He’s a sadist, and he’s a very dangerous guy. That’s the one Eiza González has to keep busy, and they have such a fun cat and mouse. Come to find out, Marjorie Stewart is Jewish, and later on there’s this moment where she’s singing, because they have to keep everybody busy through this whole thing. It’s amazing. The fight scenes are amazing.
Why “Based on True Events” Does It
I think the thing that makes this so much a better movie is it’s based on true events. Are some parts fictionalized? Maybe. Have we sort of sensationalized the characters? Oh, absolutely. Especially at the end, when you see the title cards and the faces of the original people, along with little blurbs about what happened to them, and they all look like normal folks. And then you’ve got big giant Alan Ritchson or big giant Henry Cavill playing these same people. It’s incredibly endearing, and I find the whole situation really, really great.
They Can’t Blow It Up, So They Steal It
It’s one thing after another after another, and I do want you to go see the movie. I don’t want to spoil everything for you.
At the end of the day they can’t achieve the mission, so they change the mission. They can’t blow up these boats for various reasons, and I’ll let you guys figure out what those are. So they steal them. They turn them in to the British government, and by the way, weeks later, America has entered the fight. It’s on. All the players we know who arrived at the end of it are involved, and the mission did what it was supposed to do.
But they’ve all been arrested when it’s all said and done. All of them on the team are marched out, and this is the kind of room you’d go get a parole hearing in. It’s rough. And Churchill walks in. He’s telling them about everything that’s happened, and he’s trying to speak in sort of a distant third person. He’s like, you know, I can’t speak to who did or didn’t do these things, or why all these things happened. And then it’s, so what’s going to happen to this unruly lot who disobeyed orders from an admiral?
Well, they’re all going to work for me.
They became his special forces unit. This was his group. It’s a fun movie.
The Verdict
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare deserves a solid 9 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
This was such a brilliant movie, and it’s not too gratuitous. I know this is sacrilege, but this did everything that Inglourious Basterds did without being gross. I don’t know. I just liked this better. And maybe it’s just because it’s based on true events. That’s what really did it for me.
Everybody’s doing such a great job. And then to find out that essentially this is where Ian Fleming got the character of M and the other characters you know of. Historically speaking, this is a very important event, not only in history but in entertainment history and everything else. It blows me away. It’s worth the watch, for sure.
Let me know what you thought of the movie. I can’t wait for you guys to see this one yourself, and I’m very interested to find out where you land on it. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
