I have been waiting for Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre for a LONG time. For reasons I am not going to go into here, this has been pushed back quite a few times but is finally upon us. It’s Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham together for the umpteenth time, and their track record has been REALLY good, so let’s just get into it!
Orson Fortune (Statham) is a high maintenance agent for hire with the British government through his handler, Nathan Jasmine (Cary Elwes). He is called in after a dangerous piece of technology is stolen with suspect number one being billionaire Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant) and jumps into action with tech wizard Sarah Fidel (Aubrey Plaza) and jack-of-all-trades J.J. Davies (British rapper and second-time Ritchie collaborator Bugzy Malone) as they enlist actor Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) to discover the buyer of this technology and stop it from being unleashed on the world. Oh, and did I mention there is another team chasing it too led by the enigmatic Mike (Peter Ferdinando)?
I have been a fan of Ritchie’s for a LONG time now going back to “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels”. He has made and re-ignited the careers of several actors over the years with a LOT more hits than misses alongside a visual style that is all his own. Twenty-five years after his feature film debut, he keeps his distinct style but does so in a way that shows growth and expansion in a way that stays current and slick while still being true to who he is. Having worked with almost this entire main cast before as recently as “The Gentlemen” in 2019 definitely helps and with the most notable addition of Plaza, this is more than just your normal shoot-em-up spy romp. This script has great moments and turns that while can be a bit telegraphed is still a fun ride.
This is also one of those cases where a “director’s cut” may show some things that make this script a bit disjointed at times with a run time that sits just below two hours. There were moments where the plot just seemed to jump for what seemed to be the sake of beating that time deadline. Sometimes, it’s OK to take the time to give the audience more of a feeling of the stakes the characters are going through and perhaps even some background to the dynamics between them.
With a title like Operation Fortune, I have no doubt that the intention is to make this into some form of a franchise and honestly, I am here for it. Perhaps some of the gaps I found in this one can be further explained to give a full picture of what could truly be going on here, and as long as Ritchie and Statham are leading the way (at an absolute minimum), I will carry the banner for it.