The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare

2024 Lionsgate

Rated: R

Length: 2 hrs

Action ~ Comedy ~ War ~ History ~ True Story

Starring: Henry Cavill, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Henry Golding, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Babs Olusanmokun and Eiza González.

NO RULES. NO REGRETS. JUST VICTORY

Henry Cavill stars as Major Gus March-Phillips who is brought out of Military Prison by Brigadier Colin Gubbins “M” and Ian Fleming late 1941 in England during World War II. He is tasked with heading Operation Postmaster, a last resort mission dreamt up by Winston Churchill, “M” and Ian. An unsanctioned secret operation to go to the Spanish island of Fernando Po in Africa, where the Nazi’s are resupplying their U-boats that are decimating the Royal Navy fleet, and destroy the resupply ships.

Accompanied by Irishman Henry Hayes(Hero Fiennes Tiffin), Freddy “The Buzz” “Frogman” Alvarez(Henry Golding), and “The Danish Hammer” Anders Lassen(Alan Ritchson), they sail around the coast of Africa to La Palma Canary Islands where they storm a Nazi Garrison and extract Geoffrey Appleyard(Alex Pettyfer). They then continue on the Swedish fishing Trawler Maid Of Honor to the Spanish port of Fernando Po to destroy the Nazi resupply ships. A suicide mission fraught with perils and unexpected twists and turns. They sail between the British Navy ships on one side who will incarcerate them and the Nazi U-boats on the other that will kill them.

This is based on the true story of the first Black Ops before there was such a thing. The beginnings of Agencies like the Navy Seals, CIA and other world agencies that were spawned to do the dirty work under the radar. Gus March-Phillips was the inspiration for James Bond in Ian Flemings novels. Sir Christopher Lee who starred in and was a consultant on numerous James Bond movies, was a member of The Ministry Of Gentlemanly Warfare in it’s early days. He was also second cousin to Ian Fleming.

Cavill delivers his most charismatic performance since The Man from U.N.C.L.E., channeling that mustached grit with Guy Ritchie flair, while his co-stars, like a sharp-shooting Eiza González and the ever-reliable Alan Ritchson, match his energy beat for beat. Christopher Lee’s nod to real history adds gravitas, reminding us these men and women changed the course of history.

A thrilling blend of fact, legend, and adrenaline-fueled storytelling, this is one of the best True Story war films of recent years. These men and women helped change the course of history. It’s a fantastic story well told and portrayed by all involved in this movie. I love the True Story Movies and I love this one.

A great adventure!

Well done and highly recommended!

Two Thumbs Up!

Alex Pettyfer, Alan Ritchson, Henry Cavill, Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Henry Goldin in THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE.
Photo Credit: Dan Smith for Lionsgate.
Courtesy of Lionsgate.

Heads Of State

2025 Amazon Prime Studios

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 53min

Action ~ Comedy

Directed by: Ilya Naishuller

Starring: John Cena, Idris Elba, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jack Quaid, Paddy Considine, Stephen Root, and Carla Gugino.

Two Leaders. One Mission. No Diplomacy.

Heads of State, an action comedy about two world leaders who must put aside their differences when they become the targets of a powerful and ruthless foreign adversary, is streaming now exclusively on Prime Video. Despite their not-so-friendly and very public rivalry that jeopardizes their countries’ “special relationship,” UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) and U.S. President Will Derringer (John Cena) are begrudgingly forced to rely on the only people they can trust: each other. Allied with brilliant MI6 agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), they must go on the run and find a way to work together long enough to thwart a global conspiracy that threatens the entire free world.

The movie starts with The World’s Greatest Food Fight in Bruñol, Spain. The site of the annual overripe tomato festival which erupts into everyone throwing tomatoes at everyone, it is a big red mess. MI6 agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), is undercover as a news broadcaster covering the event along with her crew in the undercover News van. They are on the lookout for Russian arms dealer Viktor Gradov and when they think they have spotted him, they quickly realize that it is a trap set up to eliminate the undercover team. The entire team is eliminated with the exception of MI6 agent Noel Bisset (Priyanka Chopra Jonas). She holds her own in the gun battle but is shot in the chest in the end. Luckily she had on her bulletproof vest.

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) and U.S. President Will Derringer (John Cena) are meeting in London before they head to the NATO summit in Italy. President Derringer suggests that Prime Minister Clarke should join him on Air Force One so they could arrive together in Italy for the summit. He does and after they are airborne things take a turn for the worst. The Airplane staff has been infiltrated by assassins and another plane shows up and starts firing armed drones at Air Force One. The President and The Prime Minister manage to make it to the back of the plane and get the last two good parachutes with the help of a Secret Service Agent.

They jump out of the plane, deploy their parachutes and land in the Belarus countryside. The agent had instructed them to make their way to Warsaw, Poland where they have a CIA safe house. Now Prime Minister Clarke and President Derringer must make their way safely through the countryside to the safehouse and figure out what is going on and who is responsible for trying to kill them. They make it to the safehouse in Warsaw only to find out that the safehouse’s cover has been blown and whoever is responsible is storming the house trying to kill them. The CIA agent at the safehouse informs them that the bad guys are using tech to turn all the NATO countries against each other and that all hell is about to break loose.

There are tons of Puns, pun intended. It is hilarious comedy, non-stop action and political intrigue as they try to outwit the bad guys and stop them from tearing down the world order. Priyanka Chopra Jonas does an awesome job as Agent Bisset coming to their rescue and helping them thwart the evil plans. The witty banter between John Cena and Idris Alba is infectious, it is simply good clean fun. The Tomato fight scene at the beginning was a sight to see, as was the gun battle during it. The Air Force One scene was pretty intense and worth a watch just to see. Well done CGI. I liked it, a lot. Made me laugh, I really enjoyed and I think you will too. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Operation Mincemeat

2021 Netflix

Rated: PG-13

Length: 2 hr 8min

Drama ~ Thriller ~ War

Directed by: John Madden

Starring: Colin Firth, Kelly Macdonald, Matthew Macfadyen, Penelope Wilton, Johnny Flynn and Jason Isaacs.

“We’re going to play a humiliating trick on Hitler.”

The Book:

Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben Macintyre – April 5, 2011.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING COLIN FIRTH

The “brilliant and almost absurdly entertaining” (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker) true story of the most successful—and certainly the strangest—deception carried out in World War II, from the acclaimed author of The Spy and the Traitor.

Near the end of World War II, two British naval officers came up with a brilliant and slightly mad scheme to mislead the Nazi armies about where the Allies would attack southern Europe. To carry out the plan, they would have to rely on the most unlikely of secret agents: a dead man. Ben Macintyre’s dazzling, critically acclaimed bestseller chronicles the extraordinary story of what happened after British officials planted this dead body—outfitted in a British military uniform with a briefcase containing false intelligence documents—in Nazi territory, and how this secret mission fooled Hitler into changing military positioning, paving the way for the Allies’ drive to victory.

The Movie (Warner Brothers UK Website):

It’s 1943. The Allies are determined to break Hitler’s grip on occupied Europe, and plan to launch an all-out assault on Sicily; but they face an impossible challenge – how to protect the invasion force from potential annihilation. It falls to two remarkable intelligence officers, Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) to dream the most inspired and improbable disinformation strategy of the war – centered on the most unlikely of secret agents: a dead man. Operation Mincemeat is the extraordinary and true story of an idea that hoped to turn the tide for the Allies – taking impossibly high risks, defying logic, and testing the nerves of its creators to breaking point.

The Review:

I have seen this movie a few times and just watched it again. It is a remarkable story, hard to believe that MI5 and British Intelligence concocted this plan and set it into motion. And better yet, that the plan worked, fooled Hitler and changed the course of the war. It is very similar to The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare, the story and the movie. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was based on MI5’s Operation Postmaster which occurred in January 1942. Operation Mincemeat occurred in April 1943. Both British Intelligence Operations that were highly successful in spite of all the odds. I find it completely fascinating how deceptions in special operations were carried out in WWII that ultimately helped defeat Hitler and The Nazi regime.

I wondered how many Operations there were like Postmaster and Mincemeat. Wikipedia has the answer….a lot. Here is the link if you’re interested: OPERATIONS. So just to wrap up Operation Mincemeat: They took a dead body from the city morgue with no apparent family ties and fabricated a background story on him. His service in the military, his social life, family, a girlfriend (they used a photo from one of the secretaries involved in the operation to stick in his pocket). They dressed him up in a Major’s uniform, loaded his briefcase with false attack plans and used a submarine to sneak in off the coast of Spain. They then dropped his body in the water close to shore so someone would find him on the shore and take him to the Nazis.

Ian Fleming, played by Johnny Flynn in this movie, is another interesting look at the role he played in British Intelligence’s role in WWII. Ian Fleming also appears in The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare and was involved in that Operation behind the scenes. In both movies you can see him constantly at his typewriter writing on his fiction work. He would later write the James Bond series of Books that later became a very popular worldwide Movie Franchise. He created 007 and you can see in the movies where he got the influences for his characters. They were inspired by the real men and women doing the dirty work of the covert operations in WWII. Fascinating stuff.

I think it’s a great story and a great movie, well done by the Netflix folks. Colin Firth, Matthew Macfayden and Jason Issacs all did great jobs in this. Simon Russell Beale was a very believable Churchill and I really liked Kelly Macdonald as Jean Leslie. I remember her from Boardwalk Empire, I’m a fan of that series. This is a good war movie without much of the violence and bloodshed, more of a secret agent spy covert operation movie.

Yes, this is a good one, you should watch it.

Two Thumbs Up!