Posts Tagged ‘Guy Ritchie’
Wednesday, April 24th, 2024
THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE is the new Guy Ritchie picture, and that title sounds like some Matthew Vaughn KINGSMAN type fantasy-secret-agency shit, but it’s a real thing, based on a true story. They say that at the beginning of the movie but I thought, “Yeah, uh huh, ‘true story,’ thanks Guy Ritchie,” so I was surprised when at the end they showed pictures of the real people. Oh shit, you were serious?
Yeah, of course it’s heavily fictionalized, but not as much as I’d assumed. The main characters are at least named after specific real people who really were on a WWII-era British special ops mission called Operation Postmaster, in which an undercover agent from the Special Operations Executive (SOE) threw a party on the Spanish island of Fernando Po to distract German officers and Spanish merchants while commandos snuck into neutral territory and stole the ships they used to deliver supplies to the Axis powers. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Arash Amel, Babs Olusanmokun, Cary Elwes, Christopher Benstead, Danny Sapani, Eiza Gonzalez, Eric Johnson, Freddie Fox, Guy Ritchie, Henry Cavill, Henry Golding, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, men-on-a-mission, Paul Tamasy, Rory Kinnear, special ops, Til Schweiger, Winston Churchill, WWII
Posted in Reviews, Action, War | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, September 19th, 2023
GUY RITCHIE’S THE COVENANT really is the official title of Mr. Ritchie’s 2023 Afghanistan War action drama. You know – in the tradition of LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER. The backstory is they were gonna be straight forward and call it THE INTERPRETER, but then they decided to get a little pompous and change it to THE COVENANT, but that meant they had to add the GUY RITCHIE’S to distinguish it from Renny Harlin’s warlock movie THE COVENANT. That’s okay, this is one he can be proud to put his name on. It’s a good one.
Let me tell you this. A few years ago I hit my breaking point with War On Terror films. I felt like even when they weren’t pro-war or militarism propaganda they were still perpetuating our complacency on this unending war. Then we finally pulled out of Afghanistan, so that sort of changed the ethics of using it in action movies, but I still wasn’t anxious to revisit the topic. When I started seeing trailers for these new Jake Gyllenhaal and Gerard Butler movies where they’re a soldier trying to get their interpreter to safety I thought “oh jesus, this how they’re gonna keep milking this thing?”
So I’m thankful to the Action For Everyone podcast and others that have kept praising THE COVENANT and KANDAHAR and explaining why they’re more interesting than I assumed. I don’t know about that second one, but I’m glad I didn’t go with my initial plan to skip THE COVENANT. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Afghanistan War, Alexander Ludwig, Antony Starr, Dar Salim, Emily Beecham, Guy Ritchie, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jonny Lee Miller
Posted in Reviews, Action, War | 54 Comments »
Monday, September 18th, 2023
OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE is the first of two Guy Ritchie films released in 2023. They came out so close together because this one was delayed more than a year for reasons reportedly including the pandemic, the bad luck of featuring Ukrainian gangsters right when Ukraine was invaded, and restructuring of distributor STX. I swear I heard it was going straight to video at one point, but then it suddenly hit theaters pretty much out of the blue, with predictably poor response.
It’s another Ritchie-Statham collab (their fifth), but not a gangster movie. Instead it’s a light-hearted spy caper, not an all-out comedy, but very jokey. It’s got the usual spy stuff: planting trackers, facial recognition software, meeting with buyers, pulling people into vans. And their mission takes them into the world of the super-duper rich, on yachts, in mansions, private jets, charity parties, bodyguards, art collections, jewelry auctions. A team of crafty good guys have to earn the trust of billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant, CLOUD ATLAS) before he sells a dangerous device called The Handle. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aubrey Plaza, Bugzy Malone, Carey Elwes, Eddie Marsan, Guy Ritchie, Hugh Grant, Jason Statham, Josh Hartnett, Lourdes Faberes, Max Beesley, Peter Ferdinando, spy
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs | 26 Comments »
Monday, September 13th, 2021
WRATH OF MAN is a pretty different type of Guy Ritchie movie. It certainly shows some of his interests, his directorial chops, and his long relationship with filming Jason Statham. And okay, it also has some of that lightning quick snappy banter between the fellas, some of which I couldn’t follow at all. And it has Josh Hartnett playing a character called “Boy Sweat Dave.” I’m not sure I can picture that being in somebody else’s movie. Guy Ritchie is the Boy Sweat Dave type.
And yet this is a different style (a more calm and controlled type of flashy) and tone (less flippant, more foreboding, and even mythical) than what we expect from him. It doesn’t have freeze frames with character’s names as they’re introduced, but it does have four sections with pretentious chapter titles. A trend I very much approve of.
It’s a remake of a 2004 French film called LE CONVOYEUR (or CASH TRUCK), which I could only find on VHS with no subtitles (update: I got to see it on a Region B blu-ray so here’s my review). But this seems to me like it’s playing off of two American traditions: pulp crime novels, and movies that try to be like HEAT. I can enjoy both. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Eddie Marsan, Eli Brown, Guy Ritchie, heists, Holt McCallany, Jason Statham, Jeffrey Donovan, Josh Hartnett, remakes, Scott Eastwood
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Wednesday, September 11th, 2019
ALADDIN. The 1992 Disney animated classic about a “street rat” who’s a “diamond in the rough” and gets three wishes from a hyperactive genie and uses the opportunity to try to marry the princess he just met. See, they come from opposite worlds, but if you think about it, having to sneak out of your gigantic palace in disguise to go to the market while your dad tries to make you marry a prince you don’t know for political reasons is very much the same experience as being an orphan who knows how to make crushing poverty fun with petty theft and parkour. So I don’t see why there would be any awkwardness there. They’ll do great!
Now we have a live action version, and legitimate reason to be skeptical. I’m very proud of my review of SAVING MR. BANKS from just six years ago, which I turned into sort of a manifesto against kneejerk cynicism toward Disney and happy endings and what not. But these days the corporation probly gets less pushback than it honestly deserves – they buttered us up with Star Wars and Marvel movies and then created a disastrous monopoly by purchasing Fox. There are many small, terrible things I could complain about, but it’s in the big picture that it seems to me they’re really doing the opposite of what their founder was beloved for. It seems less about telling great stories and more about trying to own the most popular “properties.” Not only have they entirely abandoned the classic hand drawn animation that was once their entire business, but they’re recycling their own animated stories in live action and/or realistic computer animation that’s sometimes well done but generally lacks the heart and soul of the drawings Walt helped breathe life into.
That fucking sucks. On the other hand, I can recognize that most of these movies are pretty enjoyable on their own merits. So I try to be fair. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alan Tudyk, Billy Magnussen, Disney, Guy Ritchie, live action remake of cartoon, Marwan Kenzari, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Nasim Pedrad, Will Smith
Posted in Family, Fantasy/Swords, Musical, Reviews | 25 Comments »
Monday, May 29th, 2017
KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD is not your father’s King Arthur. Nor is it your John Boorman’s King Arthur, your Broadway’s King Arthur, your Disney’s King Arthur, your Jerry Zucker’s King Arthur or your Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur. It’s not even your 300‘s King Arthur, even though it opens with two armored, King Kong sized war elephants laying siege to Camelot. One of them swings a wrecking ball from his trunk, the other has a pyramid on his back. It spews flames like some kind of crude engine and contains the evil Mage King Mordred (Rob Knighton). That is until King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana in another Oh cool, it’s Eric Bana / Oh wait, he’s only gonna be in the beginning part, isn’t he? role) jumps aboard and introduces the inside of the sorcerer’s neck to Excalibur.
Yeah, there’s more crazy fantasy where that came from, or at least a couple more giant versions of animals (snake, bat), but mostly this stays true to the description Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur. Like he did with Sherlock Holmes, he recasts Arthur (Charlie Hunnam, GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS) as a streetwise brawler. He was sent away (like Superman) but in a boat (like Willow) to avoid being killed by his evil uncle Vortigern (Jude Law, eXistenZ), but also he witnesses his father being murdered (like Batman) and then grew up in a brothel (like Richard Pryor). In adulthood, we first meet him having just avenged some vikings who (at the very least) beat up one of the ladies. I’d like to think he’s just a loyal family member and not their pimp. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aidan Gillen, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Charlie Hunnam, Djimon Hounsou, Eric Bana, fantasy sword dudes, Guy Ritchie, Joby Harold, Jude Law
Posted in Action, Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 42 Comments »
Wednesday, March 1st, 2017
The last Guy Ritchie movie I watched was the first SHERLOCK HOLMES. When it ended I realized first that I wasn’t sure what the mystery was that Sherlock Holmes had solved, and then that I was having a reaction from accidentally combining medication and alcohol. But some people told me they saw it undrugged and didn’t know what the mystery was either. At any rate, I had long since given up on Ritchie since the initial excitement of LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, which I have not revisited.
That’s why I took much too long getting to THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., a fun, charming, stylish summer blockbuster Cold War spy thriller that represents Ritchie at the very top of his game. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alicia Vikander, Armie Hammer, based on a TV show, Cold War, Guy Ritchie, Henry Cavill, Hugh Grant, Nazis, spies, Sylvester Groth
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Reviews | 21 Comments »
Tuesday, November 5th, 2002
Nobody told me the Brits knew how to make a crime picture. I mean I know the Limey is a limey and all but that one is American made on American soil. Here’s one those Brits can be proud of in my opinion.
People probaly compare this to Pulp Fiction and what not and I do believe it’s somewhere up there. It uses an even greater mastery of cinematismic languaging with maybe a little less substance as far as most people are concerned but then what the hell do those bitches know. Anyway it’s a fun as hell movie about four Londonese dudes about 30 years old each who invest in a big card game. They come out in the red for $500,000 and have one week to pay it back if they don’t want to start losing fingers. They owe the money to a guy named Harry the Hatchet and this motherfucker means business so they will stop at nothing to get the money they need. What follows is a complex game between these four kids, two other gangs, a house of pot dealers, and Harry the Hatchets horrific henchmen. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Guy Ritchie, Jason Flemyng, Jason Statham
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 2 Comments »
