Guy Ritchie's films do have a Ronseal quality to them, so whatever the topic, cheeky chappies, cross-referential quipping and lashings of extreme violence are guaranteed. This time, the formula is applied to a loose retelling of the British Operation Postmaster during the Second World War, with Henry Cavill leading a regtag band to sink a cargo ship integral to the U-boat menace in an African port. Scene by scene, it resembles Inglourious Basterds so heavily that Ritchie really should be paying Tarantino royalties. The Germans are caricatures, there's a cat-and-mouse game between Til Schweiger's head Nazi and the sole Jew in the marauding party and interludes with an ahistorical Churchill, who orders the mission.
It starts promisingly enough, like a comic Boys' Own escapade, but the wilful disregard for historicity soon becomes grating, and then it descends into nothing but endless shooting and explosions. Any tension evaporates as it does so, and so does interest in the outcome. Perhaps time to take the director's toys away now.
5/10
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