This is the third Guy Ritchie thing I am watching in the last two weeks and the worst by far. It's not that the actors played any badly or that the production values weren't good, but everything about this movie has been already done to death and so it brings absolutely nothing new to the table. It doesn't even feel like a Ritchie film.
This is what you get: Sadistic Nazis, check. Legions of them dying stupidly like NPCs, check. Quippy and cocky protagonists complaining about the death of their loved ones by Nazi hands, then killing as many Germans as possible in an as brutal a manner as possible, check. Team of specialized weirdos making plans that never work as expected, but then adapting like pros, check. The handpicking of "the team", even if most of them haven't received any meaningful screen time, check. Arrogant and uber-sadistic Nazi officer that gets tricked by beautiful woman who is also Jewish, check. A handpicked cast of actors that would bring people in theaters, but that barely use their personal attributes in the film, check. Unescapable situations from which every hero escapes really easily, check. Doing things "undercover" because their own country wouldn't approve of their actions, check (also completely made up).
And look at the cast: The first eleven listed there are people I easily recognize from movies and series as serious actors. And what do they do with them? Nothing. It's all basically a heist movie, in its most derivative form, that uses none of the actors even close to their full potential. And for what? The story has the slightest semblance to the actual operation, but it's complete fiction. It has more in common with Ocean's Eleven. It's the difference between strawberry flavored water and a strawberry! And Kinnear's Churchill was abysmal! I love the man, I know he can act, but in this movie he was awful. And it's not even his fault, he should never have been cast in such an incompatible role.
What makes it even worse is that there was a perfectly good template for the type of film this should have been: SAS Rogue Heroes, which is a lot better, it's a series, it's also based on real people and it's really really fun. No way can you watch that and then enjoy ... I am not going to try to type its name, it's stupid.
Bottom line: The title should have been "Ocean's 1942", it misused its cast, it misrepresented real historical facts, it was bland, it was needlessly nasty, it was boring, it was derivative, it was bad. I think the only good stuff Guy Ritchie does is when Vinnie Jones is in it. Whenever Ritchie gets stupid ideas, Jones slaps him across the head back to reality. What other explanation is there?
This is what you get: Sadistic Nazis, check. Legions of them dying stupidly like NPCs, check. Quippy and cocky protagonists complaining about the death of their loved ones by Nazi hands, then killing as many Germans as possible in an as brutal a manner as possible, check. Team of specialized weirdos making plans that never work as expected, but then adapting like pros, check. The handpicking of "the team", even if most of them haven't received any meaningful screen time, check. Arrogant and uber-sadistic Nazi officer that gets tricked by beautiful woman who is also Jewish, check. A handpicked cast of actors that would bring people in theaters, but that barely use their personal attributes in the film, check. Unescapable situations from which every hero escapes really easily, check. Doing things "undercover" because their own country wouldn't approve of their actions, check (also completely made up).
And look at the cast: The first eleven listed there are people I easily recognize from movies and series as serious actors. And what do they do with them? Nothing. It's all basically a heist movie, in its most derivative form, that uses none of the actors even close to their full potential. And for what? The story has the slightest semblance to the actual operation, but it's complete fiction. It has more in common with Ocean's Eleven. It's the difference between strawberry flavored water and a strawberry! And Kinnear's Churchill was abysmal! I love the man, I know he can act, but in this movie he was awful. And it's not even his fault, he should never have been cast in such an incompatible role.
What makes it even worse is that there was a perfectly good template for the type of film this should have been: SAS Rogue Heroes, which is a lot better, it's a series, it's also based on real people and it's really really fun. No way can you watch that and then enjoy ... I am not going to try to type its name, it's stupid.
Bottom line: The title should have been "Ocean's 1942", it misused its cast, it misrepresented real historical facts, it was bland, it was needlessly nasty, it was boring, it was derivative, it was bad. I think the only good stuff Guy Ritchie does is when Vinnie Jones is in it. Whenever Ritchie gets stupid ideas, Jones slaps him across the head back to reality. What other explanation is there?
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