Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre

Just as familiar as any spy thriller, not quite as stylish as any of Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11 films, and as unoriginal as any caper film, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre attempts to capture the breezy exuberance and cheeky humor of Steven Soderbergh’s beloved franchise while generating a few belly laughs and some comical moments that feel like a riff on every other spy thriller. By returning to action crime roots, Miramax producer Bill Block and co-writer/director Guy Ritchie recapture the spirit of Ritchie’s previous crime thrillers like Revolver, RocknRolla, The Gentleman, and Wrath of Man. With an impressive ensemble cast where most cast members appear to be having a blast, and with Hugh Grant hamming it up as both nemesis and eventually ally, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Cuerre feels like a buildup to a potential franchise in the making, even if it feels like it runs out of momentum during its finale.

Co-written by Guy Ritchie and frequent Ritchie screenwriters Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, who all wrote both The Gentleman and The Wrath of Man, put a lot of the same spy movie tropes and familiar beats into the same movie, except this time the writing is more convoluted. Whether this is deliberate or not is beside the point considering the result of the film, which comes off as more dull than clever. The stronger highlights of the film involve how Ritchie and his co-writers’ step away from the male gaze and build up a very memorable female character with Audrey Plaza as Sarah Fidel, in which Plaza steals the show as a skilled computer hacker. Even with that, it feels like Plaza is just doing another one of her spills, just as Hugh Grant once again hams it up even more than he did in The Gentleman, and Jason Statham just feels like an action movie mannequin who barely gets a scratch on him. As producer and lead actor, he looks kind of bored in this.

Courtesy Lions Gate Entertainment

Statham plays Orson Fortune, a private intelligence contractor who is summoned by a British government agent named Nathan Jasmine (Cary Elwes) to find the whereabouts of an important briefcase that was stolen in Ukraine. Little intelligence is known about what is inside the briefcase and what it contains. It is revealed through hurried exposition that fellow contract spies Sarah and J.J. Davies (Bugzy Malone) know through their hacking control grid that the brief case is linked to billionaire arms dealer George Simonds (Grant).

In order to get closer to George, they discover that he has a soft spot for celebrities and has a thing for flirting with their girlfriends. This opens the opportunity for Nathan to blackmail Hollywood movie star Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) to get on George’s yacht along the way, who is in Europe promoting his new film along the French Rivera. Sarah ends up posing as George’s girlfriend, and sure enough, George ends up flirting with her. However, Danny eventually ends up being charmed by George once he discovers that he owns the same 1966 Ford Mustang that he drove in one of his earlier action films. The film holds all the makings for Ritchie to pull off some suspenseful action sequences and great humor, but it all ends up falling flat. There are some occasional chuckles, but nothing ever feels too clever, and the suspense never feels as elaborate as what’s at stake. There is very little tension building by Ritchie, thus making the action scenes, which mostly consist of Statham combating mostly bodyguards and watchguards, feel very basic.

Courtesy of Lions Gate Entertainment

Just as Danny and Sarah, close in to find out who the insiders are that George is working for, we end up discovering the suitcase containing account numbers, contracts, and routing numbers for wire transfers. Sarah ends up ordering Orson to burglarize some of George’s operatives in hopes of putting in a flash drive so she can hack into their heavily protected computers to find out more information on the insider deal. It’s one of the few cleverly comical scenes in the film that is disrupted by scenes of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on the TV as Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head by BJ Thomas. This allows Sarah to tap into George and his associates’ phones to find out where their dealing is. The phone call reveals a rivalry between another arms dealer named Mike ( Peter Ferdinando) that ends up playing a cat-and-mouse game where George ends up joining forces with Danny and Sarah in return for getting his money back, but only on the terms that a majority of it goes to a children’s charity.

The film’s build-up holds many promises of being satirical, rousing, and sophisticated all at once, except this Ritchie romp never quite takes off. What could have ended up being a sharp comedy ends up being frustratingly dull. While each of the characters has enjoyable moments, they are never consistent, and most of the actors end up feeling like they are just idling away. Even the heist at the end, involving billions of dollars on the line, has suspense that feels so insubstantial. Ritchie attempts to evoke sparks and tension, particularly in its dry British comedy, but nothing ever ignites. While Ritchie, Statham, Plaza, Harnett, Grant, and their co-writers have certainly turned in something watchable with some entertaining moments without putting much effort into it, just imagine what they could have done if they really put their efforts in.

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre is now playing in theaters.