IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Released: 12th January
Seen: 26th August
A few years ago, Guy Ritchie released a film called Wrath of Man which I may have called the most average Guy Ritchie film ever made, a film that just takes all the tropes one thinks of when they think of a Guy Ritchie film and does them as casually as possible. It felt especially average since it was the first film that the director made after The Gentlemen, which is still one of the most enjoyable films in his filmography. Well turns out there might be some competition for the title of “Most average Guy Ritchie film” with Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre… though it absolutely wins the award for stupidest film title, so there’s that.
Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre is a wacky comic action adventure following uber-cool super spy Orson Fortune (Jason Statham) who has been tasked with retrieving something known simply as “The Handle” from a bunch of Ukrainian mobsters. He’s hired to do this by Nathan Jasmine (Cary Elwes) who also hires Sarah Fidel (Aubrey Plaza) and J.J. Davies (Bugzy Malone) to help out with the job. Turns out part of the job means getting in touch with weapons dealer Greg Simmons (Hugh Grant) in order to intercept his attempted sale of The Handle and it turns out the best way to get on Greg’s good side is by using his favourite actor Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) as some sort of bait. Naturally, assorted shenanigans ensue because otherwise, we don’t have a film.
What Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre gets absolutely right is the energy, you can feel the enthusiasm in every little thing that’s being done by this captivating cast of characters and it is kind of contagious. It’s easy to get sucked in and enjoy the banter and the dynamics between the characters, they’re compelling performers who make you really want to try and pay attention so you can catch every little nuance that they are putting into these intentionally over-the-top performances but the problem is that once you do try to pay attention you realise that this film pretty much has nothing going for it beyond a really amazing cast.
Plot-wise, Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre is basic enough that it should be fun. It’s a basic spy thriller filled with a few big betrayals that all kind of tie into actual modern-day issues, that should be a lot more entertaining than it is. Every scene just feels either kind of jumbled or rushed through, which is not a feeling you should be getting with a two-hour movie. There are entire characters who have major scenes that don’t matter, meanwhile a major player in the final act is almost a forgettable joke and barely does anything to the point where a grand reveal that should’ve been exciting just doesn’t work.
This balance problem makes for a film where you’re almost hoping for something to grab you so you can like it, and occasionally that happens with some of the performances. Aubrey Plaza snags more than a few fun little moments through the fact that she’s just good at a specific kind of humour that people who grew up worshiping Daria relate to, meaning her sarcastic delivery just hits the spot. Also helping is Hugh Grant who once again proves that he is one of this decade’s great character actors, AKA he’s stopped giving a fuck and just does whatever he wants to do and it’s absolutely delightful every time he does it. The rest of the cast… I mean, they’re fine but either they’re doing the exact thing you expect (would love it if Statham could just play a different kind of character than he always does, just once) or they’re just kind of existing without standing out.
Some of the action beats are kind of exciting, usually the hand-to-hand fighting stuff which tends to lean in on Statham’s ability to do a fight scene convincingly, but only some of them. A strange number of them either happen just off-screen or so far away that you kind of just hear them happening and then see the aftermath, which is just not that exciting. It’s not even well done enough to count as a subversion of action movie tropes, It’s just not a good action film because it only sometimes delivers good action and most of the time just doesn’t deliver anything at all. This is not to say that something needs to blow up every 45 seconds or else it’s dull, but when stuff does blow up or people do have a shootout it’d be nice if those things actually meant something to the audience.
Perhaps that right there is the biggest problem with Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre… nothing about it really means anything to the audience. If you like the main actors then sure, you’ll enjoy their characters a little bit but there’s nothing about them or the story that’s engaging enough to pull the audience in. It’s not got any of the charm that a Guy Ritchie film should have, none of that special energy that makes him a notable director of some form. It just kind of does the things that happen in a Guy Ritchie film but without the special something that makes the best films by that director special.
Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre is a mockbuster parody of a Guy Ritchie film, albeit one written and directed by Guy Ritchie. It’s not that it’s painfully bad, it’s got enough of the basics to be watched for a few brainless hours without much annoyance but considering who made it, who is in it and what it’s about it could’ve been so much more fun. This is, truly, the most average of the Guy Ritchie films because it has all his normal trappings, fits right in with his aesthetic and yet makes the audience feel pretty much nothing. It’s one of those “The best stuff was in the trailer” films so just scroll back up to the top of this review and rewatch the trailer… congrats, that’s just about everything you need to see.
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