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Actor Cary Elwes has given some strong performances across his career in films like Saw, Kiss the Girls, Glory, Days of Thunder and Dracula. There is no question that the greatest of these though is that is the of Man in Black in The Princess Bride. It’s no secret that I am a particular fan of this movie as the name of this website comes from a line spoken by Elwes in this part but I am sure that anyone would agree that his unfailing polite yet slightly sardonic hero with the beautiful clipped English accent is an exceptional piece of characterisation.

There have certainly been a number of directors who have shared this opinion as they have seemingly tried to recreate it when putting him in their own films. Mel Brooks when casting him as Nottingham’s legendary outlaw in Robin Hood: Men in Tights was definitely trying to capture the wonder of his previous turn for Rob Reiner and there are elements of it in his bad guy roles in Ella Enchanted and Black Christmas as well. The most successful movie in doing this however is definitely the English language dub of Ghibli’s The Cat Returns where Elwes’ Baron is essentially Buttercup’s Westley in feline form and it’s totally sublime.

Guy Ritchie did this same thing when having him play the head of his secret spy organisation in 2023’s Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre too, and in fact has done so a second time in his latest movie The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. This time though, not being satisfied with having just Cary Elwes recreate his best role, he has relayed the traits onto several other players as well. In this film Henry Cavill pretty much heads up a whole crew of beautifully well spoken, courteous, unflappable, unrelenting English seafaring adventurers whose demeanour should not lead to them being underestimated in a scrap. I have no idea if they are not left handed but the desire here has clearly been to fill a whole boat with dread pirates. This film is not The Princess Bride by any stretch but it carries some of its charm in places.

There is not a great amount of innovation in the film, as stated it’s best aspect is borrowed, but it is a compelling enough romp. Telling the story of Winston Churchill’s WWII clandestine special forces agents on the mission to disable the fleet of German U-Boats, with only a very loose grip on what in reality actually happened, this feels like an old fashioned war film like The Guns of Naverone or Where Eagles Dare, only with an approach to the Nazis more akin to Indiana Jones.

Really The Zone of Interest should have put this kind of portrayal of The Third Reich to bed. It’s difficult to take this seriously after Jonathan Glazer reminded cinema audiences just how seriously we should be taking the Nazis, but here they are one dimensional villains, dispatched like the evil mushrooms in Super Mario and it feels a little flippant in 2024.

Another thing I we thought we’d got past but where Ritchie has other ideas is just giving Eiza González the pretty woman part. For so long she was cast just to be looked at but 3 Body Problem properly showed the potential beyond this she so obviously has. Here though she is the sexy female spy whose one job is literally to seduce the port commandant. What’s worse is that she is the only woman in the movie. She does have agency and drives the plot but again not in a way that indicates Guy Ritchie has any awareness of the climate of contemporary cinema.

Generally though there is fun to be had here if you don’t over think it. While I believe my concerns are legitimate the only thing I couldn’t get past was Rory Kinnear’s strange performance as Churchill.

So l look forward to how Ritchie utilises Cary Elwes next because when the actor falls back on those crisp Westminster tones and his trademark nonchalant valour I could watch it forever.

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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is on Amazon Prime.