Welcome back to my eternal backlog. Believe it or not, I’m almost caught up, in that I only have one full review left until I’m back on track with the films released last weekend. That said, I still have several flicks to look at. Thankfully, they all fall into three neat little groupings, perfect for capsule reviews via the “Back Row Thoughts” column.
The first is a pair of pictures released a week apart, both of which are fairly similar from a thematic standpoint. While varying widely when it comes to the core content and the execution, each one is essentially about killing a bunch of fascists, which is a tune I think we can all dance to. They’re both fun in their own way, but on the whole, you won’t feel like you missed out if you can’t track them down in the theatre. So join me now for a bit of the old ultraviolence.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
The latest effort from Guy Ritchie is a mild departure, in that this particular vehicle has a basis in historical fact, as it was adapted from a book about Winston Churchill (an unrecognizable Rory Kinnear) and the first major covert ops of World War II. Specifically, we’re talking about Operation Postmaster, a mission where Major Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill, one of Ian Fleming’s inspirations for James Bond; Freddie Fox plays Fleming in the film) led a team that commandeered a Nazi supply ship in Africa, disrupting the German war machine’s infrastructure as the U.S. was joining the effort.
However, this is still a Guy Ritchie film through and through (Jerry Bruckheimer produced, and you can see where his input overruled Ritchie’s better angels), so the tale is heavily fictionalized to align with the bombastic action, which opens with March-Phillips and his team (Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding, Hero Feinnes Tiffin) in a small fishing vessel taking out an entire SS battleship regiment, proceeds to the group walking straight into a POW camp to rescue another of their number (Alex Pettyfer) and taking out every officer with surgical precision in ways that defy physics and basic logic, and blowing up a port with minimal injuries and shooting their foes almost as an afterthought. Meanwhile, future film actress Marjorie Stewart (she was in Little Big Shot and Young and Willing in the 50s; Eiza González plays her here) works angles with the big baddie Commandant (Til Schweiger) and Cary Elwes holds down the fort in London in his usual logistical support role.
In true Ritchie fashion, the action comes fast, the quips come faster, and the scenery is chewed with a level of joy equal to a dog at a bacon buffet. If you want to see a Guy Ritchie movie, by God you’re going to get one! If you’re not into his stuff, you might find yourself wanting, but there are enough superlative production elements to keep you entertained, and Cavill relishes every second of his screen time, giving a performance that’s beyond fun in how deadpan and “gentlemanly” it is in spite of his character’s roguish and cavalier disregard for human life.
Could it have been better? Sure. I wish it was a little more grounded. I wish the story was a little closer to the historical record and a little less predictable. I wish Eiza González was my girlfriend. But sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good, and if you’re looking for verisimilitude from Guy Ritchie, I don’t know how to help you.
Grade: B
Boy Kills World
Well, it pretty much delivers what it promises. I mean, the “Boy” character – a deaf-mute played by Bill Skarsgård, but “voiced” by H. Jon Benjamin via internal monologue – doesn’t kill the entire world, but he pretty much takes out everyone involved in his world, which is a lot. The film is highly derivative, which is probably why it can’t quite crack the magical “Fresh” mark of 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I’m a bit more forgiving of it because a) the movie never pretends to be more than it is, and b) I was having a blast through most of the runtime.
The premise is batshit, but thankfully it doesn’t overstay its welcome, getting in and out in 110 minutes so things don’t get boring. In a dystopian society that blatantly rips off The Running Man and The Hunger Games, the ruling Van Der Koy family (Famke Janssen plays paranoid matriarch Hilda) survived a coup attempt sometime before the events of the film, and as such oversee a “Culling” ceremony every year, where suspected dissidents are rounded up and executed on live television. The Boy is a victim of this cruelty, being spared while his mother (Rolanda Marais) and sister (Quinn Copeland) were killed. Raised and trained in secret by another wronged mentor known only as the Shaman (Yayan Ruhian), the Boy readies himself for the day when he will finally take revenge on Hilda and the entire Van Der Koy family (the fact that Benjamin as his inner voice never screams “RAMPAGE!” like Sterling Archer is, I feel, a missed opportunity)
Playing out like a video game with waves upon waves of enemies (this actually ties in with the pathos, as the Boy bonded with his sister over arcade fighting games), our protagonist picks up allies (Andrew Koji and Isaiah Mustafa, the latter of whom has a great running gag where he speaks complete gibberish because Boy can only read lips with moderate skill) and works his way through the Van Der Koy empire, slaughtering anyone and everyone in his way, facing off against their chief enforcer (Jessica Rothe as the helmeted “June 27,” who sometimes communicates via LED messages on her visor, which can’t help her vision in a fight, but it’s still fun) and the rest of the clan (Brett Gelman, Michelle Dockery, and Sharlto Copley) as glorified mini-bosses before the ultimate encounter. There are some predictable twists along the way, but the narrative is pretty straightforward, because the action is all that matters.
And that action is VERY satisfying. I don’t want to spoil anything in case you wish to see it, but some of these kills are just goddamn glorious, particularly the ones involving a table vice and a jib camera (being that I work in TV, the latter of those is especially great for me). Director Moritz Mohr, making his feature debut after some successful shorts (Sam Raimi produced, and like Bruckheimer, his flourishes are palpable, though in a good way here), is equally committed to comedy and viscera as the Boy mows down his various opponents, and the end result is quite effective. The picture wears its influences on its sleeve (everything from Kill Bill to Hardcore Henry, which also starred Sharlto Copley), to the point where that phrase is almost literal, as the Boy wears a red vest that looks very similar to Michael Jackson’s jacket from Thriller, but I’m guessing this is intentional homage rather than straight ripoff. You can tell that Mohr has learned from previous over-the-top violent spectacles, and he’s doing his own spin on it. The material itself is nothing new, but you know he’s having the time of his life giving us his version of it.
Is this groundbreaking in any way? No. But that doesn’t always have to be the case. As I said earlier, the movie knows exactly what it is, and doesn’t represent itself as anything more ambitious or profound. This is simply a stylized body count with the giddily insane addition of having H. Jon Benjamin narrate it like an excited teenager, and that joy is infectious. That doesn’t mean this is anything truly special, but it is more fun than it has any right to be.
Grade: B
Join the conversation in the comments below! Have you seen either of these films? Which one did you prefer? How long do you think you’d last in any of these fight scenes? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) and YouTube for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
I Actually Paid To See This 