Henry Cavill's 122-Minute War Movie Is One Of Netflix's Biggest Streaming Hits

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Guy Ritchie's 2024 war thriller "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" is based on a rather exciting true story of a special arm of England's military forces during World War II. It's highly fictionalized and just as highly stylized, but it tells the story of Operation Postmaster, a war operation that allowed the Brits to overcome and kidnap several Spanish ships in 1942. In real life, England's Small Scale Raiding Force (the SSRF) and the Special Operations Executive (the SOE) arranged a party for the Spanish soldiers, and then overwhelmed the ships, sailing them off to a port in Lagos. These operations weren't, at the time, supported by the British government, but they proved to boost morale among the British military, proving that secret operations could be executed effectively. 

The context for Operation Postmaster was changed for Guy Ritchie's film, and the action was amped up to cinematic levels (the film is hardly a good history lesson), but it seems that the attitude is the same. Ritchie aimed to make British covert commandos look as cool on the modern film screen as they must have felt back in the early 1940s. It certainly helped that Ritchie cast the handsome drink of water Henry Cavill as the real-life Gustavus "Gus" March-Phillipps, the head of the operation. The film also stars the living refrigerator Alan Ritchson as Danish soldier Anders Lassen, the unbearably handsome Alex Pettyfer as Geoffrey Appleyard, and the dazzling Eiza González as Marjorie Stewart, a.k.a. Lady Marling. Everyone's hero Cary Elwes plays Brigadier Gubbins, the "M" of the operation, while the talented Rory Kinnear plays Churchill. 

The film wasn't a hit when it was released in theaters, making less than $30 million on a $60 million budget, but it is currently a notable hit over on Netflix. 

"The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" seems custom-designed for WWII-enthusiast dads everywhere. Unlike something like, say, Aaron Schneider's rivet-counting naval picture "Greyhound," "Ministry" is not the least bit historically accurate. In terms of its rough-hewn masculinity, however, "Ministry" is successful in spades. Critics appreciated the film's heroism and derring-do, even if it was all merely a cinematic construct. 

It certainly helps that the film has a marvelous cast. In a fun character addition, Freddie Fox plays Ian Fleming, who was actually involved in British intelligence war efforts before penning his celebrated James Bond novels. The film also stars Babs Olusanmokun from "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" and Henry Golding from "Crazy Rich Asians." In other words, "Ministry" boasts one of the single most attractive casts in modern film history. Most of these actors played real-world British soldiers who would likely be flattered to have such pretty on-screen counterparts. 

Guy Ritchie is largely known for making movies about a certain bloke-ish type of ultra-masculine character, having helmed crime films like "Snatch," "Wrath of Man," "The Gentleman," and, most recently, "In the Grey." He is also behind the ultra-successful "Sherlock Holmes" movies with Robert Downey Jr., and the 2015 film adaptation of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," so spies, subterfuge, and manly mayhem are very much his métier. "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare," as the title and the subject matter would have you believe, saw Ritchie directly in his wheelhouse. The film is based on the book "Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII" by Damien Lewis (not the actor). 

Reviews for "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" were mixed-to-positive. Here on /Film, our own Jeremy Mathai only gave the film a five out of 10, saying that Alan Ritchson was the film's only major standout. The script, Mathai said, was blunt and obvious, making "Casablanca" references and James Bond nods that only elicit eyerolls. The sight of Ritchson in little round glasses, however, adds an element of semi-camp to the proceedings. 

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film bears a respectable 68% approval rating, based on 168 reviews. Tim Robey, writing for The Daily Telegraph, was very negative on the film, giving it only one star (out of five) saying that the wholesale slaughter of WWII baddies was weirdly not cathartic. He noted that Ritchie was happy to make a whimsical WWII comedy, and then forgot to keep the energy high when the comedy shifted to high-octane action. Several critics also noted that Ritchie, known for his swagger, turned in something that was a little low-energy for him. Alison Willmore, writing for Vulture, said that "Ministry" comes close to being an outright satire of WWII propaganda-leaning action, but doesn't go quite far enough. 

But other critics were chuffed by the flick. The venerable William Bibbiani, writing for The Wrap, called it "a bracing and enjoyable men-on-a-mission thriller," writing: 

"[Y]ou can take your subtlety and you can shove it. We're supposed to enjoy this violence, drink in this slickness, laugh at this silliness, and shake our fists at the sniveling cowards who try to scuttle this mission and submit to Hitler. Screw those guys! They're jerks!" 

Fair enough. Who cares if the heroes of WWII are depicted as caricatures? If they're killing Nazis, we're going to be on their side, gentlemanly or not.