"Operation Fortune" doesn't lack talent, but it's Guy Ritchie at his laziest

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023)


A lot of action pictures have tried to replicate Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie. But what if an actual Guy Ritchie movie doesn’t even feel like the genuine article? “Mission: Impossible” without the dazzling stunts (read: "Red Notice"), “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” is the epitome of fine. It feels like the most perfunctory Ritchie movie in a while without most of the director’s cheeky energy and maximalist panache. With a stellar ensemble, how bad could it be? Well, the actors might be the only reason any of this espionage romp is watchable at all as a slick, forgettable lark. It's hard to get excited about anything else otherwise.


This is boilerplate spy stuff with another plot revolving around another McMuffin. When a deadly new weapons technology called “The Handle” is stolen, the British government has handler Nathan Jasmine (Cary Elwes) assemble a team to (a) find out who was selling it and (b) retrieve it. First, he enlists the help of private contractor Orson Fortune (Jason Statham), “an administration’s nightmare” who’s on holiday. Hoping Fortune will get along with the others, Jasmine also brings together hacker Sarah Fidel (Aubrey Plaza) and marksman JJ Davies (Bugzy Malone). Meanwhile, a rival contractor named Mike (Peter Ferdinando) keeps beating Fortune and his team to the punch. To get closer to billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant) and intercept the sale of the weachapons tech, Fortune and his team convince movie star Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) to be the bait. There’s plenty of globe-trotting from London to Madrid to Cannes to Turkey and other beautiful locales that get credited on screen, but characters spend an awful lot of time on planes and behind laptops.


It’s not an impossible mission to make a Guy Ritchie film that’s less flashy, frenetic, brash, and profane than what we’re used to seeing. Since Ritchie’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “The Gentlemen” were both a lot of stylish fun even with the director’s stylistic flourishes toned down, that’s not exactly a bug. “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre,” though, has the patina of a fun, exciting, fizzy espionage action film with actors dressing up and trading banter without actually being one at all times. Writer-director Ritchie and co-scribes Ivan Atkinson & Marn Davies (2021’s “Wrath of Man”) don’t have any pretenses for the film to be more than just entertainment, but they don’t bring much wit, either. Action set-pieces are smoothly executed if not staged in any interesting way to remember by tomorrow. There are a few narrative reveals, but none that are too clever. Unable to fully work on its own terms, this feels like the first installment that will bridge a whole franchise. Everything would need an extra kick to make that prospect welcome.


The cast does prop up a who-cares plot at least with their characters’ personalities and seems to be having a good time together. It’s particularly fun to see Aubrey Plaza being invited to the boys’ club; even if the character of Sarah Fidel is sketchy at best, Plaza gets to be Plaza with her deadpan yet still-unpredictable delivery and share some snarky, playful banter with her male co-stars, especially Jason Statham. Statham, himself, does Statham well with his stoic charm, swagger, and unstoppable physicality. Reuniting with Ritchie after “The Gentlemen,” Hugh Grant is also very funny in slimy billionaire mode as if he's doing a Michael Caine impression. And if there is a Josh Hartnett-issance happening, he needs to keep being offered roles like this where he gets to play with his former heartthrob image. Light, brisk, and occasionally amusing but hardly worth this cast’s efforts, “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” is more often derivative, generic, and lazy. Whereas a lot of Ritchie’s cinematic efforts have been accused of trying too hard to be cool, this one seems like it doesn’t try much at all.


Grade: C


Lionsgate is releasing “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre" (114 min.) in theaters on March 3, 2023.

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