★☆☆☆☆

There are great war films — The Cruel Sea, The Guns of Navarone — there are war films that are, to be honest, less great, but still fun — The Battle of the River Plate, Force 10 From Navarone — and then there is this, which is neither great nor fun.

How bad is it? Well, it starts with Winston Churchill, in 1942, showing his intelligence chiefs a newsreel to explain to them that they are at war with Germany. Now, one can get carried away with quibbling about plausibility in movies, but I do feel that by 1942 most people in Britain, and certainly in the intelligence community, were broadly familiar with the whole “at war with Germany” concept. 

I say it was Winston Churchill but — and again, you really should take this as an indicator of the quality of the material we’re dealing with — my actual reaction was to ask: “Is that supposed to be Churchill?” Having paused the film to look it up — I am nothing if not a professional — I can tell you that it was. It turns out that the wartime leader is played by Rory Kinnear, who is a fine actor, so I think we must consider the possibility that his performance is a deliberate work of sabotage by a man who had read the rest of the script. It would certainly be justified.

Directed by Guy Ritchie, the film is based, as the makers are at pains to tell us, on the true story of Operation Postmaster, a tale full of bravery, intrigue and astonishing moments. Unfortunately, here they are coated with a varnish so thick that even the parts that are true feel made up. 

The script is boring, requiring the cast to keep stopping to explain the plot to each other

The biggest problem with the film is not that it’s wildly anachronistic — the stars all showing off the kind of ripped physiques that place them firmly in the 2020s — or that it wildly fictionalises — were senior people really trying to oust Churchill so they could make peace with Hitler? — or that it makes grandiose claims — this is not, you will be shocked to learn, the operation that changed the course of the war — it’s that it’s boring. 

The script is boring, requiring the cast to keep stopping to explain the plot to each other. The action is boring, offering plenty of explosions but neither peril nor excitement. And the characters are boring, the usual Ritchie stand-bys of posh fellows who are actually a bit rough. 

Silly war films can be brilliant: the plot of Where Eagles Dare makes no sense, but its script gave Richard Burton truly wonderful lines. Kelly’s Heroes is anachronistic, but it’s impossible to watch it without smiling. Sadly The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare isn’t just silly, it’s dull.