Prime Time: The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)

I believe I have said this before, and probably quite recently, but Guy Ritchie has moved into a phase of his career where he seems quite accomplished at delivering what can be commonly referred to as "dad films". There's often a central mission at the heart of things, a band of talented individuals are thrown together, and The Ministry Of Gentlemanly Warfare also presents things in the setting of WWII, which immediately calls to mind films like The Dirty Dozen and The Wild Geese, two titles it is definitely happy to sit alongside.

Things are tough, with the German forces looking set to retain the upper hand in the war due to their dominance of the sea, thanks to their many U-boats. It would be good if the U-boats could be taken out of the equation, or at least minimalized, but that's unlikely. The big ship that supplies the U-boats, however, could be a viable target, although it's docked in a harbour that cannot be the target of an officially-sanctioned military mission. But if a team could be assembled and convinced to do something that wasn't official . . . that could be a good chance to strike a blow against the Nazis. Which is why we end up spending a lot of time in the company of Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Eiza González, Babs Olusanmokun, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, and Henry Golding.

Working this time with writers Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Arash Amel, and helping to adapt the book by Damien Lewis, Ritchie cannot really be faulted here for taking the bones of a true story and using it as a frame upon which to hang some enjoyable tension and violence. While it's another Ritchie movie that doesn't really feel like it's full of his style, the argument can be made nowadays that he's simply showing one or more strings that he's added to his bow. Not that any of this is a radical departure, especially in the scenes that have the characters engaging in witty banter with one another as bullets and shells fly around them, but the period setting and the tally-ho spirit of the whole thing helps it to feel a step removed from many other Ritchie films.

Cavill is having a whale of a time, portraying the fearless leader of this merry band of killers with a fine swagger and a readiness to often let out a hearty laugh. Ritchson is savage, killing off people with knives, arrows, and, in one memorable sequence, a fire-axe, and he is also always ready to grin and chuckle while turning his foes into corpses. Eiza González and Babs Olusanmokun are eminently watchable as they work on the ongoing intelligence side of the operation, keeping themselves close to the open jaws of the lion (personified by Heinrich Luhr, played brilliantly by Til Schweiger) in a way that nicely builds the tension in between the scenes of fighting and Nazi bloodshed. While Tiffin, Pettyfer, and Golding are slightly sidelined, they each get at least one moment to make a solid impression, and that also leaves room for enjoyable supporting turns from Danny Sapani, Cary Elwes, Freddie Fox, and Rory Kinnear (the latter two portraying Ian Fleming and Winston Churchill, respectively).

The performances are all good, the music by Christopher Benstead has some key pieces that are fantastic, and the overall look and design of the film makes it feel as if a decent budget has been well-used by everyone involved. This aims to entertain, and it succeeds. It's a bit uneven, especially when the third act fully kicks in, and the action becomes less interesting as it grows in scale, but there are enough great individual moments to satisfy viewers who are prepared for a standard "men on a mission" adventure

Considering that we live in a world where you can now get your social media content flagged for being "inappropriate" or "hatespeech" when you remind people that it's always moral and justifiable to punch a Nazi, The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare gains a lot of goodwill for unapologetically keeping us onside with characters who want to do just that. Sometimes you may sigh as you watch the news headlines recently, and this might be just what you need to remind you that good people are still out there, willing to get their hands dirty in any battles they need to win to keep themselves on the right side of history. Of course, I know that "the right side of history" is a very subjective thing, but not so much when you're talking about those who helped defeat Hitler and co. in WWII.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Disappearance At Clifton Hill (2019)

A young girl meets a young boy, he has one bleeding eye bandaged over. The boy is clearly trying to stay hidden from someone. A car drives by. The boy runs. The car reverses, and an adult grabs the boy and bundles him into the back of the car. The young girl returns to the rest of her family, told to pose for a photo as she cannot stop looking at the car now driving past them. That's how Disappearance At Clifton Hill starts. It's a good start, and it then moves into interesting territory when we meet Abby (Tuppence Middleton), the grown-up incarnation of that young girl. Abby is back in her hometown, Niagara Falls, after the death of her mother. She wants to see if she can make a go of her mother's business, the Rainbow Inn, before having to sell it to developers. She has six weeks, even if her sister, Laure (Hannah Gross), would just like it all done and over with already. Abby finds a photo from that memorable day that has haunted her for years, which starts her on an investigation into the potential kidnapping/murder of a young boy. But it's hard to get anyone to believe her after so much time has passed, especially as she has a habit of not being able to tell the truth to anyone.

Some friends of mine had recommended Disappearance At Clifton Hall over the past couple of months, which meant I was excited to finally make time for it. Unfortunately, this is one time when my friends and I disagree. Quite strongly.

A feature debut for both director Albert Shin and writer James Schultz, Disappearance At Clifton Hill is a horrible mess for most of the runtime. It also has music from Alex Sowinski and Leland Whitty that ranks as some of the worst I have ever heard. Obviously aiming for an unnerving and strange atmosphere throughout, it almost constantly moves from standard strangeness to sound that replicates cassette tape being chewed around some tape heads. Why would you want that? Maybe if your film was as strange, in terms of visuals and plotting, as that soundtrack then it might work. But Shin and Schultz don't have that level of strangeness here. They have a rather traditional mystery tale, with an obvious villain and one enduring clear recollection guiding the amateur investigator, and then try to add layers of distracting oddness. It doesn't work. Perhaps aiming for something like Inherent Vice or Under The Silver Lake, or any number of noirs that have managed to work with strange quirks bolted to the main story thread, neither of the men succeed in their aim. The third act is exceptionally dull in the way it tries to tie everything up neatly, and then becomes tiresome with a final grace note that may or may not be a real underlining of the pointlessness of everything you've just watched.

Middleton is very good in the lead role, a clearly troubled young woman who becomes exasperated as she tries to prove that her other mistakes don't mean she is wrong with her attempts here to discover the fate of a young boy. Gross is equally good as the understandably tense sister, having been hurt and betrayed in the past, but willing to forgive and love and move forward, if possible, and Noah Reid is very likeable as her supportive husband. David Cronenberg is a lot of fun as a local historian and podcaster also trying to get to the truth of things, Andy McQueen is decent as a young cop who is new in town, and Eric Johnson is Charlie Lake, the local businessman who basically owns the town. There are other characters who come to the fore, including the potential kidnappers and a cheesy stage magic act, but the performances aren't that good, mainly thanks to the lack of any consistent tone, and the unsure notion of whether we are seeing people or seeing Abby's version of people. Although only in one or two scenes, Elizabeth Saunders stands out in her role, a suspect named Bev Mole, but that's the only other performance worth praising.

I was hoping for something really good here. Even as things started to falter, I held out hope that it would get back on track. That didn't happen. The opening scenes work well, but then it's a slow and steady downward slide towards real awfulness. Which is a shame, because there are elements here that work. They're just drowned by so many things that don't.

4/10

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