BEFORE: December is a great time for watching movies that are full of snow and everything, but it's so cold out now in January that it's an even better time for watching desert-based movies, like "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" and "Dune: Part Two". What better way to feel warm than to visit the desert, even through a movie? Tonight's World War II soldiers are going on a mission off the coast of Africa, so there's more desert potential here tonight, too. OK, so it's not enough to be a week-long theme, it's just three days but still, it's a running motif.
Babs Olusanmokun carries over from "Dune: Part Two".
THE PLOT: The British military recruits a small group of highly skilled soldiers to strike against German forces behind enemy lines during World War II.
AFTER: This one plays like Guy Ritchie's take on "Inglourious Basterds" meets "Ocean's Eleven", or something like it, and really, it's nice to see Guy get out of London for once. But the light-hearted violence remains, as a team of renegades and malcontents is put together to do what the British army can't, namely infiltrate a West African Nazi naval base that is responsible for re-stocking and re-supplying the U-boats (aka the German submarines, "U" is for "Untersee") that are sinking the ships delivering arms to the United Kingdom from the U.S.
This is based on a true story (whether it really played out like this is anyone's guess) but the logic is solid, if you disable the supply boats, then the submarines can't get fuel, oil, or air filters, and then they won't be able to launch, and if they can't launch they can't sink ships, and if they can't sink ships, then America can enter World War II, or at least deliver weapons and other materials to the U.K. to aid in their war efforts. It's like that old saying about "For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost, for the want of a shoe, the horse was lost..." and so on up the chain. Take away the little stuff and the big stuff can't function, or at least that's the theory.
Winston Churchill puts this black ops mission together, and future spy novelist Ian Fleming maybe came up with it - while two Special Operatives take the train to the Spanish-controlled African island of Fernando Po, to gather intel and run a casino operation as a cover, commando Gus March-Phillips is tasked with assembling a ground team to sail down there and destroy the Italian supply ship, aboard a neutral Swedish fishing boat. Gus knows EXACTLY who he wants for his team, only one of those men got captured by the Gestapo and is being held at a Nazi base on the Canary Islands. OK, so they have to make a little stop first, thankfully that island is on the way.
Watching the four men rescue the fifth is a thing of beauty, it's like a symphony of destruction as the men work their way through this Nazi island base, taking them all by surprise and shooting them all with silent weapons - their guard is down, because who in their right mind would walk RIGHT INTO a Nazi base and just start shooting? They upgrade their weapons along the way - because why not use the German's own machine guns against them? And why not toss a few grenades into the command post, and look cool while doing it? Guns, knives, bow and arrows, these guys will use everything and even do that cool thing where you grab your enemy by his gun and make him shoot his comrades? (Who did this first in movies? James Bond? John Wick? Somebody else?)
Once the team's all assembled, they head straight for West Africa, only they need to go the long way to avoid any Nazi ships OR any British ships, because there's a part of the British Navy that dislikes commoners getting involved in this war, and also there's a part of the British Parliament that actually wanted to SURRENDER the U.K. to Hitler, thinking they'd get off easy. Ah, but Churchill knew better, he figured if you give Hitler what he wanted, he wouldn't stop, he'd only want more territory and more power. So it's Keep Calm and Carry On and endure the Blitz, it'll be worth it in the end, I assure you. Trust in the team of ragtag mercenaries who are not officially sanctioned to get their secret "Mission: Impossible" done.
Meanwhile, the two special ops, Marjorie and Heron, arrive and Marjorie sets her sights on the Nazi base commander, she masquerades as a dealer looking to buy gold, but also, as an attractive woman, she figures he'll be easy to seduce as well. The Nazis did love their women, after all. Heron talks up the harbor master at his bar and learns that the supply ship is going to depart three days earlier than they thought, so the team on the fishing boat are planning to arrive too late, so they have to send word via radio channels that the boat needs to take the shorter route closer to the coast of Africa, which is more dangerous. The fishing boat does get stopped by the British Navy, however a Nazi submarine attacks at the right moment and they're able to slip away to continue their mission.
Two parties are planned at the casino, a costume party for the officers and a beerfest party for the rank and file. What German soldier wouldn't want to spend the night at the pop-up beer hall, instead of guarding the ships that nobody ever, ever tries to sabotage? So 90% of the German navy there goes to one party or another, which makes things a bit easier for the team. Big problem, though, when they learn that the supply ship has been reinforced with heavy steel, so it's now quite impossible to blow up. OK, new plan, instead of destroying the ship, they decide to steal the ship, and deliver it to those British navy vessels operating up and down the African coast. They can use the tugboats in the harbor to get the ship out to open water, and the explosives they brought can be used to blow up the ship's anchor to get it free. Then the team messes with all the speedboats in area, so the Nazis can't chase after the ship as it's being stolen, they can only watch as it sails away. OK, nice pivot, but will the new plan work?
This film bombed in the U.S. last April, it only grossed $27 million but its budget was about $60 million, so it's really doubtful there will be a sequel. That's a shame, the real Gus March-Philips carried out several similar raids, so surely there are more of his exploits to detail. Some of the other team members kept fighting the good fight after this, one became an accomplished spy who survived a year of Nazi torture but did not break, and Lassen (the big, hunky Danish guy) took part in more raids, also, until he died in 1945. (Alan Ritchson, the actor who plays, Lassen, needs to be in more action movies STAT - he seems like he wants to be the next Dwayne Johnson or something, and he's got the muscles for it. Like, WOOF!)
But then, I'm still hoping for a sequel to "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and it's also very unlikely that would ever happen. I say bring Allan Quartermain back from the dead and have him played by a new actor, or if that's not possible, just adapt the sequel comic book series, with Dr. Jekyll, Mina Murray, Captain Nemo and the Invisible Man meeting up with John Carter, working for Mycroft Holmes and fighting Martians like "War of the Worlds" style. I would watch that.
Also starring Henry Cavill (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Alan Ritchson (last seen in "The Wedding Ringer"), Alex Pettyfer (last seen in "Elvis & Nixon"), Eiza Gonzalez (last seen in "Godzilla vs. Kong"), Cary Elwes (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One"), Hero Fiennes Tiffin (last seen in "The Woman King"), Henry Golding (last seen in "A Simple Favor"), Rory Kinnear (last seen in "Man Up"), Til Schweiger (last seen in "The Replacement Killers"), Freddie Fox (last heard in "The Stones and Brian Jones"), James Wilby (last seen in "The Sense of an Ending"), Henrique Zaga (last seen in "The New Mutants"), Danny Sapani (last seen in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"), Matthew Hawksley (last seen in "Murder on the Orient Express"), Simon Paisley Day (last seen in "The Last Vermeer"), Mark Oosterveen, Victor Oshin, Alessandra Babalola, Orshuff Emmanuel Mele, Tim Seyfi, George Asprey (last seen in "Without Remorse"), Luca Marrocco, Paul Antony-Barber (last seen in "Hereafter"), Bikiya Graham Douglas, Nikolas Salmon, Mert Kilic, Russell Balogh (last seen in "The Little Mermaid" (2023)) with archive footage of Adolf Hitler (last seen in "The Real Charlie Chaplin").
RATING: 6 out of 10 glass bottles (used for target practice)
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