Guy Ritchie has spent thirty years making films about men who are very good at dangerous things, and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is the logical culmination of that career. It is a WWII action-comedy that celebrates masculine competence, British patriotism, and the willingness to fight dirty for civilization without a moment of second-guessing itself. In 2024, that is a genuinely unusual thing to see from a studio release.

The film is based on Operation Postmaster, a real SOE mission from late 1941 in which a small team of British irregulars sailed to Spanish-controlled Fernando Po off West Africa and hijacked a Nazi supply ship that was resupplying German U-boats. The U-boats were devastating Allied shipping. The logic was brutal and simple: destroy the resupply chain, kill the U-boats, save thousands of Allied lives. Winston Churchill backed the mission from the top. It was unauthorized, technically illegal under international law, and completely successful.

Ritchie structures the film as an ensemble heist. Henry Cavill plays Gus March-Phillipps, the team's leader, as a man of effortless physical authority who kills Germans with the same relaxed competence that other men use to make tea. Alan Ritchson's Anders Lassen is introduced fighting a bear and never really comes down from that register. Alex Pettyfer's Geoffrey Appleyard is the team's conscience and tactical brain. Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Babs Olusanmokun, and Henrique Zaga fill out the ensemble with the right combination of danger and wit.

The parallel operation involves Eiza Gonzalez as Marjorie Stewart, an SOE agent who runs intelligence in Fernando Po by seducing the SS commander in charge of the harbor. Gonzalez plays this as pure competence. She is not presented as a victim of her role or as a feminist statement about it. She is a professional doing a difficult job with exceptional skill, and the film treats this exactly the same way it treats Gus shooting people off boats. Both are forms of wartime tradecraft. Both are celebrated.

Cary Elwes brings dry wit to Brigadier Colin Gubbins, the military architect of the operation, and Henry Golding provides the comic bureaucratic friction of a senior officer who disapproves of everything the team does and cannot stop them.

The film has a particular kind of pleasure that was once common in adventure cinema and has become rare: unambiguous admiration for its protagonists. These men are good at violence. They enjoy being good at violence. The film enjoys their enjoyment of it. There is no introspective pause where Gus wonders whether he has become the monster he fights. He has not. He fights monsters so that civilization can survive. This moral clarity is bracing.

From a VirtueVigil perspective, this is one of the most straightforwardly traditional studio films of 2024. The ideology is old-fashioned Churchillian: civilization is worth defending, courage is a virtue, and the men willing to do what is necessary deserve honor. Winston Churchill appears in the film as a visionary who backs the mission and is shown as entirely right to do so. This is not a controversial portrayal in historical terms but it is notable that Ritchie commits to it without hedging.

The film's one woke concession is Babs Olusanmokun as Henry Hayes, whose historical identity is unclear but whose casting reads as deliberate diversity in an otherwise all-white historical European team. This does not intrude on the film's ideology or narrative. Hayes is simply part of the team and is shown as capable and loyal.

Guy Ritchie's aesthetic choices are all in service of celebrating the team. The camerawork is kinetic without being frenetic. The action sequences are clear and exciting. The period detail is well-served by the production design. The film does not overstay its welcome at 122 minutes. Christopher Benstead's score is propulsive and appropriately masculine.

Conservative audiences who have been waiting for a major studio war film that does not apologize for Western civilization or treat its male protagonists as problems to be unpacked will find this film deeply satisfying. Jerry Bruckheimer produced it. Guy Ritchie directed it. Henry Cavill is in it. These three names together are essentially a guarantee of traditional values and genre craftsmanship. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare delivers on all three.

Trope	Category	Location	Authenticity
Diversity Ensemble (Mild)	WOKE	Babs Olusanmokun as Henry Hayes — the one non-European team member in an otherwise historically all-white British SOE operation	Mild diversity casting deviation from the historical record. The character is functional and competent; his presence does not generate ideological commentary within the narrative.
Female Seductress Operator	WOKE	Marjorie Stewart's spy tradecraft involves seducing the SS commander — the film's only female protagonist operates primarily through sexual attraction	Historically grounded. Female agents did use seduction as a tool in wartime intelligence operations. The film does not sexualize this exploitatively. Marjorie is presented as competent and admirable. The mild woke flag is for the film's implicit assumption that female agency in a war context looks like seduction rather than combat.
Masculine Heroism	TRADITIONAL	Throughout — every male protagonist is defined by physical courage, competence under pressure, and willingness to kill for a righteous cause; presented without irony or qualification	Authentic. Grounded in the historical record of the SOE operators. The film is a celebration of men who were genuinely exceptional. No deception in the framing.
Churchill as Hero	TRADITIONAL	Third act — Churchill personally backs the team, spares them court-martial, and adds them to his 'Ministry'; presented as exactly right in every judgment he makes	Authentic. Churchill's backing of special operations was historically real and historically correct. The film does not rehabilitate a contested figure; it celebrates an uncontested one.
Anti-Totalitarian Valor	TRADITIONAL	Entire film — the mission exists because Nazi Germany is strangling Allied supply lines and threatening civilization; defeating Nazis is the film's unambiguous moral framework	Authentic. The most defensible possible ideological premise. Killing Nazis to protect Western civilization requires no qualification.
Band of Brothers	TRADITIONAL	Throughout — the team operates on mutual trust, complementary skills, and genuine loyalty; the mission's success depends on each man doing his job without hesitation	Authentic. SOE teams operated precisely this way. The film celebrates male friendship and professional trust as inseparable from effective action.
Self-Sacrificing Heroism	TRADITIONAL	Multiple sequences — team members knowingly sail into a British naval blockade that will get them arrested; Appleyard and Lassen take positions with minimal survival margin; all accept the risk without drama	Authentic. The real operators took equivalent risks. The film does not manufacture false sacrifice; it depicts the real stakes of unconventional warfare.
Defense of Civilization	TRADITIONAL	Framing throughout — the mission is presented not as adventure-seeking but as a necessary contribution to the survival of Britain and Western Europe against a totalitarian enemy	Authentic. The strategic logic is historically real. The U-boat resupply chain was a genuine existential threat to Allied supply lines in 1941.
Institutional Trust (Earned)	TRADITIONAL	Churchill's backing validates the team against bureaucratic opposition; the hierarchy ultimately rewards competence and courage over protocol	Authentic. The historical Churchill backed special operations enthusiastically. The film's institutional resolution is historically grounded.
Traditional Masculinity Celebrated	TRADITIONAL	Throughout, but particularly in the Anders Lassen introduction (fighting a bear), the team's combat sequences, and Gus's collected authority under every form of pressure	Authentic. These men were genuinely exceptional physical specimens. The film is accurate in its presentation of the kind of men who volunteered for dangerous wartime special operations.
Honor and Duty	TRADITIONAL	The team refuses to abandon Appleyard when the mission requires a detour to rescue him; completion of the mission takes precedence over personal safety	Authentic. The historical record shows this level of commitment to teammates among the real operators.