Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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I recently saw Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, Guy Ritchie's latest film. I had reasonably high expectations going into the film. Not that it would be high art or anything, but I thought it would be a fun action spy film in the vein of Mission: Impossible, with a pretty star studded cast. I left pretty disappointed. The film was incredibly mediocre, although not completely awful. I would say Guy Ritchie has lost his touch, but in hindsight now looking at Guy Ritchie's more recent filmography has been less than stellar. Some spoilers ahead.
The film was more or less trying to follow the formula of a film like Mission: Impossible albeit in a more tongue-in-cheek, more humorous way, but it fell short at basically every hurdle and failed to form anything cohesive. Jason Statham was Jason Statham, more or less doing what you expect, though I felt the film misused Statham, and forced him into the role of playing comedic foil to some of the comic relief characters which doesn't really work. Statham is there to punch people and deliver one-liners, he's not a comedic actor. Aubrey Plaza was awful, playing the primary comedic relief in the film while also being the spy-damsel-seductress while also being the team tech expert. Granted, I don't like her brand of frankly juvenile humour to begin with but this film it felt particularly bad, with her delivering constant sexual innuendos to her male-costars that would never be allowed to fly today if a male actor was delivering it to his female costar. Josh Hartnett's performance as the "fish-out-of-water civilian recruited into spy team" was acceptable, but heavily let down by the mediocre script that did nothing with the character. Cary Elwes plays exposition-man "M" type role and minor comic relief, there's nothing really to say. Basically the only standout performance was Hugh Grant's performance as a sleazy, creepy, yet charismatic British arms dealer (although it's kind of weird how they just make in kind of a good guy in the end unearned). Grant's performance honestly carries much of the film, and his character was just fun to watch on screen, even if the script went nowhere. All other minor roles were unremarkable, except I would say that Bugzy Malone, playing the supporting role as the team's 'henchman' field support or whatever. Not a lot of lines, but he played it well.
It's hard to describe exactly why the film and script failed, but everything just felt off. It felt like I was watching a first draft of a script that somehow actually made it into production. To give one example of how I think the film fails in trying to be a MI like spy film, at the start of the film we get the obligatory "we need to a team to deal with issue" scene to introduce the characters (We need Orson Fortune, he's the best!). Whereas in better films this would cut then to our star at the end of some other mission to introduce his character (like in Mission Impossible, or in Indiana Jones, or Bond or countless other films), instead we just get a scene of Cary Elwes in Jason Statham's hotel room trying to get him to come off holiday early with some not-so-witty banter. That's it. No action scene (talk about misusing Statham!).
There are plot threads that go nowhere - Statham's team has some rivalry with other ops team that goes nowhere and is meaningless - most characters are bland and uninteresting, are poorly introduced and have no character development. For example, Josh Hartnett's character, a Hollywood star who is recruited (blackmailed to join) the team as their "in" to get access to Hugh Grant's character. In better films, Hartnett's character would have a proper character arc, where he's an arrogant and selfish Hollywood star that only cares about himself and his wellbeing, to the end of the film where he becomes a true member of the team and asks when the next mission is. Except... they kind of forget to do that second part, and he just goes back to being the same, goofball Hollywood star except a bit less arrogant. It's what I mean but when I can see the film is trying to follow the formula of action spy films but drops the ball. They even managed mess up the MacGuffin, we don't even know what the MacGuffin actually is until 3/4 through the movie, and even when we do find out it's completely meaningless, the MacGuffin is so MacGuffin to the plot you can basically just substitute any big bad weapon or whatever, I was so uninvested in the plot. Action scenes has very little tension, the protagonists either managed to either easily defeat 30 guys, or lose to 2 guys. There were no really awesome tense scenes like Mission Impossible's cable drop scene, or MI:2's vent drop scene. There were also actual plot holes in the film, where arms dealer Hugh Grant wants to be paid his commission in currency... when it turns out the MacGuffin is a AI that the villains are going to use to crash the global financial system while they have hoarded gold to make themselves rich (Hugh Grant is literally assisting in deal that will wipe out his wealth). The film end quite abruptly. I was expecting some major twist and final fight at the end of the film, but it just never happens. It honestly felt like there was like 10-15 minutes missing from the end of the film.
The last thing to mention (and Culture War related) is that some of the villains in the film are Ukrainian, the film was reportedly reedited after the war broke out in Ukraine to be 'sensitive to current events', just as the film was nearly ready for release. It's hard to know for certain but it's very possible that large parts of the film were butchered because of this, and this new edit ruined much of the film. Still, even if that's true I think the film would still be pretty mediocre regardless.
Or played it like he's super eager to be a spy, which leads to the comedy, and Statham plays the straight man.
I haven't seen the film (and don't plan to), but I wonder if it'd have been better if they made Aubrey Plaza the Hollywood star, have her eager to be part of the spy thing, she's over-the-top with being sexual/seductive, and then it allows her juvenile humour to shine.
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Clearly you have not seen Spy. He can deliver deadpan humor very well.
Yeah, he carried that film. That's around when Melissa McCarthy had gone full Chris Farley, relying far too much on physical humour and stupidity.
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