The Dirty Half-Dozen

Film: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on basement television.

I’ve said before on this blog that I grew up in part on war movies. What I mean specifically is that I watched a lot of World War II movies when I was a kid along with some World War II television like Combat! with Vic Morrow. I didn’t specifically love the war aspects of those movies, but I did like the inherent sense of adventure in them. Propaganda films from the war years were cliched but I loved them, and also the more openly violent films of the 1960s and 1970s. Had something like The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare been around when I was 10, it would have been one of my favorite movies.

This movie, which for convenience I’m going to call TMoUW, tells something like a true story of Operation Postmaster, undertaken shortly after the entrance of the U.S. into World War II. The problem at the time was the German U-boat command. Massive shipping losses prevented the Americans from sending troops to Europe by ship, and air travel was not at a stage where it was feasible for large troop movements. Subs needed to be shut down, but the Germans were smart enough to keep their resupply ship in neutral Spanish waters. Desperate and on the verge of surrender, Churchill (Rory Kinnear) rolled the dice on a secret mission that violated the accepted practices of war. Essentially, send in an expert, but disposable, crew and destroy the ship.

The team starts with Gus March-Phillipps (Hanry Cavill), who demands the assistance of Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson), Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), and Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding). He also suggests that without the assistance of Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer), the mission is a bust, and since Appleyard is in Gestapo custody, breaking him out is their first task. Assisting the team are Heron (Babs Olusanmokun) and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza Gonzalez), who will be helping tamp down resistance in Fernando Po, where the U-boat supply ship is docked.

Heron is going to keep the Germans, Italians, and Spanish in the port occupied with a costume party for the officers and a beer party for the enlisted. Meanwhile, Marjorie will attempt to seduce Heinrich Luhr (Til Schweiger), the highest ranking official in the area and someone who seems to delight in a certain amount of what he might jokingly call Sport. Naturally, there will be some problems along the way. If the group sailing into Fernando Po are captured by the Germans, the will be executed as spies. If captured by the British, they will be arrested. So, the questions are how to sneak through, how to blow up a ship that has been rendered “unsinkable” with reinforced hulls, how to get home safely, an how to get the entire team off to safety as well.

TMoUW is a ripping yarn in the sense that our main characters are going to be witty and funny, will slay the bad guys like swatting mosquitoes, and will deal with any set-backs with the expected British charm, aplomb, and sang froid that we can only hope to have on our best days. In fact, when the team rescues Appleyard, they have a long conversation with the man before he asks them to disconnect the car battery that is still actively shocking him. I mean, it’s unrealistic, but if you’re a 9-year-old kid watching this, it’s also pretty badass.

Ultimately, that’s the problem with TMoUW. Guy Ritchie, who has always tried to pick a little meat off the bones of Quentin Tarantino, is clearly doing that here and he’s not trying to hide it. This is Ritchie making Inglourious Basterds, evident from the dialogue, the demeanor of the characters, and the action sequences. There’s nothing inherently wrong about borrowing from another director, but this takes it to the extreme. You don’t have to squint very hard to see the different characters.

Another issue, and potentially a bigger one in the grand scheme of things, is that at no time did I really feel like the characters were under any real threat. Oh, they might get hurt, but there’s no way that even one of them will die. This makes for an interesting problem—with that kind of plot armor on everyone, it genuinely feels like there’s not a great deal at stake.

The truth? This is fine. It’s just not better than fine and I really, really wanted it to be.

Why to watch The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: This is a piece of history that more people should know about.
Why not to watch: Guy Ritchie has Inglourious Basterds envy.