Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre shows that maybe Guy Ritchie isn’t firing the same way he use to. A film that by all accounts should work on paper just doesn’t flow great in any area.
Following a team of agents working just outside the governments reach attempting to regain some stolen tech by using a movie star to get in with the criminal overlord is a great thing on paper. This could be a Mission Impossible lite or a fun play on films like that. Instead we get what is mostly a lackluster and rather predictable play by numbers story here that never is clever enough to be mocking the spy films or interesting enough to be competing with them.
This may be in due to the fact that the dialog here just isn’t great. Its dry enough to where jokes don’t land most of the time and the one liners just happen. Our characters such as Aubrey Plazas wiz tech savvy character has the dry humor she has in real life but it just never lands here. Statham is his usual self with some wise cracks but its almost as if no one here has any on screen chemistry together. Thankfully Hugh Grant shows himself to be a joy as expected here as the big bad billionaire who is mostly a delight any time he is around.
It doesn’t help either that this tries to be an action movie but never does anything to really stand out as one. We get the typical Statham scenes where he punches some guys, and while Statham still is a great action star, he is honestly a bit boring here. He never faces anyone that is even a slight threat, never gets hurt really, and even out big final moment that should have been something cool is instead just a quick scene that he gets through without a sweat.
Now this film isn’t bad or unwatchable. Sadly its just very generic which may be even worse. It’s an action movie without enough good action to stand on its own, a spy film that never feels tense, and a Guy Ritchie movie that is missing most of the elements that has made his films such a hit.
Score :
2.5 / 5
