THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE
Guy Ritchie’s entertaining WWII thriller throws light on Operation Postmaster
Cert: TBC Director: Guy Ritchie Cast: Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson Released: Out now
History is written by the victors, the saying goes, and that’s not incorrect. This is how historical narratives develop, and how myths (sometimes national ones) form in the cultural consciousness. In the realm of all things cinema, movies play a vital part in shaping and promoting national mythology. Screenwriters do tend to embellish, invent, condense and rewrite. As the famous quote, from John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) put it, they tend to “print the legend”.
The complexities and nuances of how history happens can be too complex for a two-hour film. Instead, movies rely on the comfort of fact in victory. Britain stood up to Hitler against the odds and the Allied Forces ultimately prevailed. This is essentially what the WWII action genre entails, what makes it click, what makes it work, what makes it so, well,