Henry Cavill is a movie star, but his recent flops suggest a run of bad luck or poor decisions. How does someone so handsome, talented, and charismatic make Argylle and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare with only a few months in between? People want him to play Bond, but spy movies might be his Achilles heel. Of course, Ungentlemanly Warfare is a lot better than Argylle. It earns at least some portion of its newfound streaming success.
Henry Cavill Leads the Mission to Sneak Onto Amazon Prime’s Top Ten
Guy Ritchie isn’t exactly in his golden era right now. His Netflix series, The Gentlemen, did well critically, but it doesn’t stand above his usual successes. He has released one questionable big-screen effort after another. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare feels like a fairly standard example of his usual fare. He’s doing his usual “blokes get it done” gimmick with a World War II story as a loose blueprint.
Henry Cavill plays Gus March-Phillips, a comical, swaggering cartoon character who is very good at violence. He and his team launch a series of ever-shifting heists to weaken the Nazis. They’ve got a more spy-centric B-plot and a few notable historical cameos, but it mostly serves as set dressing for three or four solid action scenes. It’s ultimately harmless, but it’s hard not to feel like Ritchie, Cavill, and everyone else involved could have done better.
There’s no mystery about Ungentlemanly Warfare‘s fate. It wasn’t an interesting enough premise to draw fans to the theater, but a Henry Cavill flop guarantees some measure of streaming success. Everyone knows that a bad theatrical run is still enough to build interest in a project. Cavill is one of the most recognizable stars in the industry at the moment. The film also features Alan Ritchson in a role where he is happy to show off his absurd physique.
Maybe leaning into the slightly off-kilter homoeroticism of Ritchie’s script could have drawn more genuine appreciation. As it stands, the film feels underwhelming. Audiences seemingly agreed, as they met this film’s reported $60-million budget with only $27 million at the box office. Critics were lukewarm on it as well, granting the project a 69% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s worth a watch on streaming if nothing else.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare takes its title, some of its characters, and roughly 35% of its plot from a novelization of a true story. There are a lot of ways to make this project more interesting. Leaning into the lurid, true details might have done it. The alternative solution might have been to set a more heavily fictionalized story in the same era. Better writing, more action, a slightly healthier runtime, or any number of other things might have saved the project. Either way, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare found its target on Amazon Prime.
