“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is based on a real-life episode that occurred during World War II. This is history filtered through the eyes of director Guy Ritchie. As such, it has lots of amped-up violence tempered by moments of humor. Its pace is slightly uneven, but when the action gets going, it delivers.

The story is based on files declassified in the 21st century about activities conducted and sanctioned by Winston Churchill to fight the Nazis. From what I read in a Google search, there are significant differences between the reality and this screenplay’s version of events.

As usual, I do not feel obligated to rehash the true story of what happened since, one, I am not a historian, and two, I am reviewing the movie as is. In fact, what we take as history is sometimes drawn from eyewitness accounts, which are notoriously unreliable. Then there is the truism, “history is written by the victors.” You can add the fact that this is a release of previously-classified intelligence, so that you have to wonder what made it through as an “official” version.

The basic premise of the film is that Nazi U-boats are intercepting too many ships coming to replenish the U.K.’s supplies. There is an opportunity to impact the ability of U-boats to be deployed. An Italian ship sits in harbor on the island of Fernando Po, a Spanish (officially neutral in WWII, but a Nazi ally due to Germany’s support during the Spanish Civil War) colony in Africa. This ship contains air filters crucial to the deployment of U-boats.

So Churchill (Rory Kinnear) takes an imprisoned British officer Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) and tells him to recruit a team to blow up the ship. March-Phillips takes a small crew on a non-descript boat to accomplish the mission. This is based on intelligence that there are not many Nazi and Spanish troops on Fernando Po.

On the island itself, Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza Gonzalez) are there to run interference. In Marjorie’s case, she is deputized to seduce and distract the Nazi commandant, Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger), a typically disgusting and mean-spirited stereotype. Heron runs a casino bar on Fernando Po and has all sorts of local connections.

Officially, the March-Phillips mission is off-the-books to give the British plausible deniability. There is a boring subplot about how certain government officials want to expose the mission and thereby get Churchill booted out of office. This ends as you would suspect, and that is no spoiler since we all know Churchill rode out the war as Prime Minister.

Upon arriving, the March-Phillips crew discover a complication to achieving their objective. If you read up on the history, you will find out how this turns out even without seeing the movie.

I have commented before on how the Nazis have become Hollywood’s favorite real-life villains. Most people fervently dislike them and for good reason. As such, seeing Nazis get their come-uppance always is a crowd-pleaser.

So director Guy Ritchie has that element working in his favor. Since the Nazis are often portrayed as ruthless, the Allied forces seem to be a little wimpy by comparison. This movie provides the antidote to this past portrayal.

Ritchie has never shied away from violence. This picture is no exception. There is an opening set-piece that is a creatively-executed bloodbath as a Nazi boarding party is eliminated. Toward the end of the film, when the mission comes to fruition, there is a well-edited intercut sequence of different characters killing enemy combatants in different places and different ways.

Unlike other Ritchie movies, the use of torture is fairly minimal. We see one person’s nipples attached to an electric battery, but not as he is being tortured. Another scene in the Commandant’s private chambers shows a native woman shackled in what looks like excessive BDSM.

As for the subplot about Churchill being kicked out of office, I was baffled by its inclusion. For one thing, it is very boring. We know that Churchill doesn’t get kicked out, so why include it? We go from people vitally involved in winning the war to a bunch of frumpety-frumps who no one is interested in.
One also has to ask, isn’t there a war on? A war for the U.K.’s very existence. Aren’t all tactics legitimized? Maybe there were some “rules of war” that such an espionage mission violated but ultimately who cares?

The songs included in the party scenes are well-chosen. That these included livelier tunes otherwise banned by the Nazis officially could be justified in that there is an intermixing of Spanish and German officers present. Gonzalez’ vocal performance and sultry dance are a highlight. I also liked the percussive soundtrack used as a backdrop where two officers routinely pick off soldiers and crew members as they stroll along.

The visual effects involving the several explosions were well-wrought as well. The body shots and slicings were well-edited and sufficiently bloody. I liked the inclusion of both an ax and archery gear used by Alan Ritchson’s character Anders Lassen.

In fact, I would argue that Ritchson has the most interesting and enjoyable character to watch. He just has at it in the action sequences. All of a sudden someone takes an arrow (sometimes passing through the body completely) out of the blue.

The other actors are serviceable in their parts. But it is the action sequences which make this film, not the acting.

So this is a good introduction to more research, albeit more boring than watching this engaging war film, on the mission itself. As with most Hollywood adaptations, the real-life pictures of some of the movie’s characters shown before the credits are not as glamorous as their cinematic counterparts. But it was real people who fought the war, not celebrities.

This is suitable for tweens with some preliminary and post-movie discussion.

Three and a half out of five stars

Based upon recently declassified files of the British War Department and inspired by true events, THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE is an action-comedy that tells the story of the first-ever special forces organization formed during WWII by UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and a small group of military officials including author Ian Fleming. The top-secret combat unit, composed of a motley crew of rogues and mavericks, goes on a daring mission against the Nazis using entirely unconventional and utterly “ungentlemanly” fighting techniques. Ultimately their audacious approach changed the course of the war and laid the foundation for the British SAS and modern Black Ops warfare.

Cast: Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Babs Olusamokun, Henrique Zaga, Til Schweiger, with Henry Golding, and Cary Elwes

Directed by: Guy Ritchie

Screenplay by: Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson and Arash Amel & Guy Ritchie

Based upon: The book “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: How Churchill’s Secret Warriors Set Europe Ablaze and Gave Birth to Modern Black Ops” by Damien Lewis