Operation Mincemeat First Look: Netflix's Film Sounds Like Weekend At Bernie's Meets WWII
I know what you might be thinking. "Ugh, another stuffy World War II movie?" If you've seen one, you've seen them all, amIright? There's nothing new under the sun, modern filmmaking is dying from a lack of creativity, etc. Well, I'm here to tell you that this well hasn't completely run dry just yet. Netflix has acquired the rights to a new film based on the shockingly true story of one of the most incredible events to take place during the war.
Titled "Operation Mincemeat," the streaming service recently gave us a first look at the upcoming movie and provided some intriguing teases of the plot, which involves espionage, trickery on a massive scale, and ... a strategically placed corpse. You can read all the details for yourself below.
Operation Mincemeat
"Operation Mincemeat" comes from director John Madden, known for 1998's "Shakespeare in Love," 2011's "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," and 2016's Jessica Chastain-starring (and underrated) "Miss Sloane." It's also written by Michelle Ashford and functions as an adaptation of Ewen Montagu's 1953 book, "The Man Who Never Was." Interestingly enough, that book was actually turned into a movie with the same title in 1956, making "Operation Mincemeat" only the latest retelling of this absurd — but true! — historical event. As a fan of both Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" and Sam Mendes' "1917," I'm eager to add "Operation Mincemeat" to this trio of historically-based war films.
The period piece film is described as, "Two British officers try to turn the tide of World War II by recruiting an unlikely agent: a dead man." As stated earlier, the gist of the premise is lifted directly from the real-life 1943 events of Operation Mincemeat, in which two British agents dressed up the corpse of a homeless man as a Naval officer for the purposes of setting it adrift near Spain in possession of intentionally misleading documents. The hope was that, upon discovery, the information would make its way to higher-ups and distract the Axis powers from the Allied forces' plans to liberate Sicily. Absolutely wild stuff!
"Operation Mincemeat" doesn't have a release date just yet, but Netflix shared the above two images as well as one more that you can see below. The film stars Colin Firth ("Shakespeare in Love," "Mamma Mia!," "A Single Man," "Kingsman: The Secret Service"), Matthew Macfadyen ("Pride & Prejudice," "Frost/Nixon," "Succession"), Kelly Macdonald ("No Country for Old Men," "Brave," "Boardwalk Empire"), and Johnny Flynn ("Clouds of Sils Maria," "Lovesick," "Emma.").
