Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023)

Dir: Guy Ritchie

Written by Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, Marn Davies

Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Bugzy Malone, Cary Elwes, Hugh Grant, Josh Hartnett, Eddie Marsan, Peter Ferdinando, Lourdes Faberes, Tom Rosenthal, Oliver Maltman.

When a briefcase with contents worth upwards of $10b is stolen from a secured facility, top government official Marsan hires Nathan (Elwes) to find it. He in turn hires his own team, led by super agent Orson Fortune (Statham) to track it down before it lands in the hands of arms dealer Greg (Grant). They soon discover an old rival of Nathan’s, Mike (Ferdinando) is after the case too.

Fairly convoluted plot tries desperately hard to be a cross between Mission Impossible and James Bond, but it fails on every level. It is cinematically beautiful, with great location settings, set designs and some nice camera work – but the rest of the film lets it down.

There are plenty of action sequences, with the usual plot armour for lead character Orson, who only his name is the thing that he has going for him. There is little character development about him, so we are forced to root for him because he is the central protagonist.

The screenplay is so expositional with characters introducing themselves or discussing others as if they’ve never met or heard of them before (clearly for the audience’s sake). There are so many moments where the film treats the audience like an idiot with the constant location of the characters being displayed on the screen (London, England) for example.

Grant re does his cockney accent from The Gentlemen here, and its fine – but I hope it doesn’t become a “thing” between himself and Ritchie. His character is however the best thing about the movie.

The villain of the piece, who is working for some other characters who are introduced early on is forgettable almost instantly after the movie ends, which is abruptly.

I would give this one a miss.

2/5