Guy Ritchie might as well change his name to the Tarantino-inspired Gentlemen’s 7 because he’s consistently following in his peer’s footsteps to lesser effect. Here we have yet another “Tarantino did that first” with Ritchie trying his hand at a WW2, Dirty Dozen-esque band of ruffian brothers trying to win the war for the Allies or else. (Does Ritchie even have a POV or angle other than “cool”? And yes, people did this before Tarantino, but it really feels like Ritchie is trying to do Inglorious Basterds more than he’s trying to do Great Escape or Where Eagles Dare or what-have-you).

Henry Cavill is ed by Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding, Eiza Gonzales and others as they try to sink a couple of sailboats in the harbors of the Desert Fox’s territory to prevent supplies from getting to all of the U-Boats tearing shit up in the Atlantic. It’s a mix of cloak-and-dagger sailing operation around the African coastline crossed with an undercover operation trying to avoid Til Schweiger’s sadistic German officer at the harbor casino.

If nothing else, Ritchie seems uniquely situated to get the most out of Cavill’s ability to play a goofy persona. Most look at him and see a stoic, strong, silent type, but Ritchie sees Maxwell Smart and it’s great. He just lets him cook and vape and everything more or less rotates around his orbit, and it’s a smart choice. The other gravitational pull is Ritchson’s effete-ish Conan the Barbarian, lumbering Hulk. He puts a bow-and-arrow to better use than Rambo and just absolutely shreds through stormtrooper after stormtrooper with a seven-inch blade from hell. Gonzales also gets to charm everyone at the casino against the looming threat of Schweiger’s promised torture chamber. (To his credit, Ritchie also gets more out of Schweiger than Tarantino did in his WW2 caper, but it’s really just a matter of director’s choice as Schweiger is good in both but asked to do more in Ritchie’s film).

The script is OK, but gets too bogged down with the true story of it all and showing the rivalling factions within the British government at trying to get the upperhand. You could cut all of that mess with the backstabbing enlisted men and the bickering between officers and Churchill. We get it, Churchill was a real man and not a pushover like those Chamberlain-esque yes men. And Ritchie tries to spice things us with his usual stylish flourishes, but the looming sinister specter of Schweiger’s sadism is obviously more than this film is interested in messing around with.

The quips and action scenes are where the most fun is had, but even that benefits from almost supernatural technology as the Brits have the best silencers ever invented and of course, perfect aim in all instances. It’s all good fun, but never progresses beyond that.