The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare-Guy Ritchie’s Inglorious Basterds

With its Nazi-killing action, Spaghetti Western-like musical score, and even the font used in the opening title sequence, it's clear Guy Ritchie is taking a lot from Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds. While I found these attempts to feel like Inglorious Basterds quite distracting, once I got past that hurdle, I found an incredibly fun action romp. Guy Ritchie shows himself as an action filmmaker who knows how to have fun with his action, with the camera following these characters in their Nazi-killing mayhem with fluidity and Richie emphasizing over-the-top explosions throughout the film's action sequences. It helps that Ritchie is working with actors who all know how to chew the scenery and deliver charismatic turns as their characters, from Henry Cavil to Alan Richson to Eliza Gonzalez.

While the Nazi-Killing mayhem was a lot of fun to watch, I found the film was at its best when it wasn't focusing on that and was instead focusing on sequences of genuine espionage. Throughout the film, there are scenes of characters sneaking around, snagging information, and passing it along via telegraph, all of which I found highly entertaining. Guy Ritchie shows an evident love for the British spy films of the '60s and '70s throughout these scenes, through the way he shows the intricacy of the espionage to the witty one-liners, providing an added charm to the scene sequences.

As I mentioned, the film's diet-Inglorious Basterds could be distracting, especially since the film doesn't attempt to fully replicate the filmic look of Tarantino's film, with instead a look with an overly digital sheen that occasionally could look quite distracting given the period WWII setting. Other elements of the film are also clearly attempting to emulate Inglorious Basterds, such as Til Schweiger (an actor from that movie) as the antagonist, a performance I felt, in its overt German accent and the actor's general way of speaking, was trying too hard to replicate Christoph Walz's performance as Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds. The film's pacing also isn't always the greatest, with much of the second act feeling meandering in its focus on the lead characters traveling to the central third-act location for an extended amount of time. The film's third act also felt dragged out after a while.

But even in its flaws and overt attempts to feel like Inglorious Basterds, there's still an incredibly entertaining action film here. In its action filled to the brim with Nazi-killing carnage, an emphasis on genuine espionage, and an abundance of charismatic, scenery-chewing performances, it's a film I couldn't help but be entertained by. It may not be perfect, but I still found it incredibly entertaining, and sometimes, that's all you need a movie to be.

Note: I saw an early screening of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare through Cinemark's Secret Movie series. The film will be in wide release in the U.S. starting April 19th.