The latest Guy Ritchie flick “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” has a spine of true story to it, even if it does all it can to amplify a long-declassified World War II tale with enough dead Nazis to make “Inglourious Basterds” blush.
The result is a jauntily entertaining film but also an awkward fusion. Ritchie’s film, which opens in theaters Friday, takes the increasingly prolific director’s fondness for swaggering, exploitation-style ultraviolence and applies it to a real-life stealth mission that would have been thrilling enough if it had been told with a little historical accuracy.
In 2016, documents were declassified that detailed Operation Postmaster, during which a small group of British special operatives sailed to the West African island of Fernando Po, then a Spanish colony, in the Gulf of Guinea. Spain was then neutral in the war, which made the Churchill-approved gambit audacious. In January 1942, they snuck into the port and sailed off with several ships — including the Italian merchant vessel Duchessa d’Aosta — that were potentially being used in Atlantic warfare.
Pregnant Rooney Mara dresses her baby bump in head
China prepares to launch Tianzhou
China yields remarkable outcomes of sci
TV series spotlights young love for older woman
Moment car trying to make a turn goes airborne and crashes into a California home
Former chairman of China Everbright Group indicted for embezzlement, bribery
Nicola Peltz cements the end of 'feud' with 'beautiful' mother
Chinese artists from Yunnan perform in Capital Governorate, Kuwait