In order to put off writing my backlog of missed movies, I watched a new one to write about instead. This movie is one of the assortment of Guy Ritchie movies I hadn't yet watched, so I am here to let you know: how Guy Ritchie is this movie? Is it Very Guy Ritchie, like RocknRolla, or is it Very Un-Guy Ritchie, like Aladdin? The answer: right in the middle.
It's a spy movie, which is a good start for a Guy Ritchie setup, and it doesn't really try to be too serious like a Bond movie or even a Mission Impossible, so that's a good start, too. Well, it mostly doesn't, but I'll come back to that.
On the surface it's a very by-the-numbers movie of the genre, a bad guy has a MacGuffin that threatens Bad Stuff in a way that doesn't really make too much sense, and the team must be assembled and go stop them. I don't think you'll find too many surprises here, but it did actually kind of surprise me in that it stripped away some of the normal elements of this entire genre. Skip ahead a bit if you must preserve the sanctity of the plot for your own first viewing of this movie that you're definitely planning to watch, but the "twist" is that neither his boss nor his teammates betray him at any point. And in addition that, everyone just very competently does their job. No real screw-ups, betrayals, double-crosses, or anything of that nature. That basically never happens!
It has some jokes that are funny, and some jokes that are not very funny. It has some okay action scenes, but none of the frenetic highs of something like Snatch, and some parts where it bogs down a little too much (probably could have been 30 minutes shorter pretty easily). Some of this prevents it from being a good movie. But having some jokes that are funny and some charismatic characters does salvage it from being a bad movie, too.
The last thing I have to say is an area I don't usually focus on much, but I think the soundtrack of this movie really lets it down. It is the aforementioned part that takes itself too seriously - it has the soundtrack of a movie that doesn't want to be Guy Ritchie, it wants to be Christopher Nolan, and it's not even very good at that. It is strangely boring, subdued, and saps some of the energy out of the movie at times, without ever attempting to be fun or match the tone of the characters, who all seem to know they're not in a particularly serious movie.
Final verdict: a little silly sometimes (complimentary), some action, a few sparing Ritchie Quick Cuts, a few disappointing elements, and in total you get exactly what a movie like Red Notice tried to be and failed - an exactly average lighthearted spy movie.
Score: 5/10
IMDb: Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre
PS: Still very grateful for Hugh Grant's "playing offputting weirdos" era. Keep it up, Hugh. He was the most compelling part of this movie.
PPS: There was a random extra goon who looked exactly like one of the guys from Auralnauts and it immediately made me think "those guys should have done the sound for this movie." They would have elevated it.
