Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre - Directed by Guy Ritchie
Director Guy Ritchie’s films are recognizable pretty quickly thanks to a few hallmarks. There’s always a team working on a mission but that team could be gangsters or spies or maybe both. The film’s are also always a feast for accents, usually variations from the UK and we get plenty of exposure to those accents while the characters spar verbally. There’s travel to exotic locations, beautifully choreographed stunts and wild car chases. With very few exceptions Ritchie has followed this formula since he first came on the scene with his debut Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels in 1998.
Another key to Guy Ritchie’s films is his travelling band of actors that he carries from one project to the next. In his latest, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre he parades his key players: Jason Statham, Hugh Grant, Josh Hartnett and Bugzy Malone. With Aubrey Plaza and Cary Elwes as new but completely welcome additions to this quick witted theatre company we’re already set for an extremely fun globe trotting spy story. Statham, Plaza, and Malone all work for a secret British agency who are tasked by Elwes to infiltrate the an arms dealer’s (Grant) organization. To do so they enlist a movie star (Hartnett) because he’s the arms dealer’s favorite actor. Madness ensues.
Within that madness is a recipe for total success, at least in my book. Operation Fortune really never takes itself seriously and it never asks us to either. Therein lies the fun. Listening to the battling British accents, screwball comedy level dialogue full of innuendo and playful mean spiritedness not to mention every character’s name elicits a laugh every time its uttered. Statham’s character is named Orson Fortune. Hartnett’s is Danny Francesco. The characters themselves are as fun as their names. Fortune loves fine wine so much his demands for it threatens to bankrupt the agency he works for. Grant gives a fantastic character performance going from clearly displaying how he’s made it as a successful arms dealer surrounded of criminals to offering genuine admiration when he’s talking to his screen idol. Everyone does a lovely job but Aubrey Plaza is clearly the film’s wild card delivering lines as if she’s drunk (in a good way) and clearly adding her own brand of humor to punch up her dialogue. It all works.
The fast dialogue is complimented by fast action. The fight sequences are brutal and immediate giving Statham a chance to prove he’s as good at ass whooping as our finest action stars. The film is full of parallel editing as well meaning that while plot has to be delivered via lots of dialogue, Ritchie structures his film to has a chase, a fight, or some other espionage going on while that plot is being delivered to keep the film moving. All in all it’s a blast at the movies and a lovely reminder of a time when movies set out not to create expansive multi-film universes but simply to entertain.
