Movie Review: «Operation of Luck: Ploy»

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In recent years, however, the quality of Ritchie’s stories has fallen miles away from the cult films “Snatch” and “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” that made him famous. Now he’s out with a new blockbuster and the fox of the ring has completely run out of ideas. An overly thin script with a lot of clichés makes “Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre” another film about a gang saving the world from collapse. He no longer becomes American.

Medicated with expensive wine

Ritchie cast Jason Statham, his most trusted actor, in the lead role. Statham is Orson Fortune, a British super-agent with lavish habits only the wealthiest of us can afford. He has to be “medicated” with expensive wine to escape the trauma, “rehabilitated” in the Maldives after each mission and flown on a private jet because he is presumably afraid to drive. Orson costs the Secret Service a fortune, but he’s also their best man to keep the British safe.

A research project, simply called “The Tool”, is stolen from a heavily guarded laboratory. No one knows what this “Tool” does or who took it, but when world peace feels threatened, a reluctant Orson must be recalled from his so-called rehab. In the team he has computer technician Sarah (Aubrey Plaza), soldier JJ (Bugzy Mallone) and Nathan (Cary Elvwes), who leads the operation itself.

The trail leads the ensemble to the eccentric arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant). Simmonds is a big fan of movie star Danny Francesco played by Josh Hartnett, and nothing could have been better than having him as a friend. Orson and his companions then push Francesco to play his most important role ever; be a human Trojan horse so the agents can get close to Simmonds to find “The Tool”.

Hypnotic

A surprise

For a long time, Ritchie was good at following a dramaturgy with surprises in store, often driven by original characters. In “Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre” there are few surprises, no memorable characters and a story full of genre clichés. Cutting back and forth in time has always been Ritchie’s trademark, and the few times you see it here, it seems completely pointless. The only surprising thing is the incredible lack of scantily clad women. With that, the list of clichés had been filled.

Jason Statham plays as he always has; with icy “jokes” so that he appears parodically harmless. Hugh Grant is probably the only character who adds real conversational humor to the film, but the relationship between him and Hartnett isn’t deep enough to really like you. Otherwise, the rest of the role gallery is overly caricatured and it becomes a bit too easy to distinguish between the bad guy and the nice guy.

hmm….

Luckily, the direction of the action is better than the film’s remaining content. Statham’s stone face works well with powerful punches, and together with the gang he runs away to the pure rhythm of “Fast and Furious”.

However, it is debatable whether one could bear to watch a movie of which there are already many on Netflix. Because even Guy Ritchie fans will feel cheated, and it’s safe to think that the director was perhaps a “two-stroke wonder”. Or you can ask that he lock himself in a room and not be allowed out until he has come up with an actual story. Because this was tame!

We waited for this