PREMISE
Special agent Orson Fortune and his team of operatives recruit one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars to help them on an undercover mission when the sale of a deadly new weapons technology threatens to disrupt the world order.
THE GOOD STUFF
GUY RITCHIE & THE STATHE- About as peanut butter and jelly as an actor-director duo can possibly be. Guy Ritchie’s signature movies have a way of blending action and dialogue at a rapid pace, and that goes so well with the quippy, profane, and almost sing-song delivery of Jason Statham, a.k.a. The Stathe. Ritchie also knows how to bring the action in droves, and Statham kicks a lot of ass.
There’s so many things that go so well whenever they team up. I know this may surprise some, but this is only their fifth movie together. I was shocked when I learned that. The two of them are just such a well-oiled machine. I assume they’d done 15 films with each other by now.
THE SCORE- Shout out to Chris Benstead for the score of this film. There’s some really ingenuitive things going on with the score in this film that I couldn’t help but notice.
For example, the very first scene of this film involves a character walking briskly in a large empty hallway. The sound of his footsteps is then looped into the score. Throughout the film, common noises are the rhythm section of the music in the current scene that you’re watching, and I couldn’t help but to be really impressed by that.
THIS CAST- Any Guy Ritchie fan such as myself that really takes the time to watch everything that comes out will notice that a lot of individuals that were in this movie were also in the wrath of Man film that was released in 2021. This makes me happy to see because it shows that Ritchie is now one of those directors at routinely gets together the same chorus of actors to do signature kinds of films. Wes Anderson does this, Tarantino does this, and now so this he.
Jason Statham, Hugh Grant, Josh Hartnett, and Eddie Marsan all do their parts. And hopefully, Cary Elwes and Aubrey Plaza will join the chorus in future Ritchie flicks themselves because they are wonderful additions to the cast and fit the kind of rhythm that signature Ritchie flicks do.
THE BAD STUFF
No exclamation point– Operation Fortune serves as a charcuterie board of sorts for the kind of action that’s in this movie. There are a bunch of really creative ideas that are served in small doses. Unfortunately, there is no real standout kind of action sequence, and the action sequences that are presented are not really shown at any length past only a couple of minutes. There are a lot of quick cuts and weird angles, and ultimately it ends up pretty underwhelming even though it’s creatively done.
THE UGLY STUFF
PACING- I do understand that this is supposed to be Guy Richie’s version of mission impossible. I understand that this is a story that is supposed to cover a lot of ground when it comes to the globetrotting antics of the characters that we are following. However, the pacing is just so damn fast that if you go to the bathroom, you may miss two or three scenes entirely.
There are scenes in this film where they will show a location, have a character say about seven or eight lines total, and then just like that, we are shown another country where the characters are. And this movie hits the ground running as well. In the first act, this particular situation happens like five times in quick succession, and it was very hard to get engrossed with the characters or the mission itself. It does make up for it towards the end, but the first 10 to 15 minutes are very sloppy.
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The reason why I think I like this movie is because I understand it was for people like me. People who’ve come to appreciate the combination of Ritchie and The Stathe believe that they really haven’t missed as of yet whenever they do work together. In my humble opinion, this is a movie that you can find on a cable network while you’re channel surfing and just stop and be entertained.
OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE de GUERRE is in theaters now.
