2025 - FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH - another day another action film from a streaming site

In the golden age of Hollywood this kind of film would have been produced by a movie studio's B-unit.  It would have been made on a tight budget, shot completely on the studio lot and feature second string actors.  But as they say times have changed.

Streaming services now produce variations of the B movie formula they now have money to burn. They can buy expensive behind the camera talent, in this case the director Guy Ritchie (who I am sure didn't come cheap).  They actually film on location and they cast what are or were considered A list stars (usually middle aged performers).  What they don't seem to have figured out is how to put together an interesting story and characters to balance the constant bombardment of action scenes for the ADD television crowd.

 

The Fountain of Youth is what I would call an internet movie.  You can sit with your computer and play solitare while simultaneously having this movie on in the background.  The actors in this case, John Krasinski and Natalie Portmann play a feuding brother and sister in search of the Fountain of Youth. 

You have to wonder who's decision it was to have Krasinski and Portmann as brother and sister it seems to me they would have been a more interesting couple as boyfriend and girlfriend but then again nobody asked me.

Guy Ritchie doesn't seem very interested in this film, with the exception of a couple of decent action scenes he's just walking through the plot to get to the finish line.  This film is clearly influenced by the Indiana Jones series, particularly that search for the Holy Grail one.  I also detect some borrowing from Howard Hawk's Land of the Pharaohs towards the end with all the running around inside an Egyptian tomb.

 

The Fountain of Youth is ultimately just another time killer of a streaming action film which it seems like I've seen a million times already.  

The film was written by James Vanderbilt who clearly watched those Indiana Jones films a lot, the running time is a very overlong 125 minutes.

2024 - THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE, disappointing spy/action film.

Another one of these based on a true story films but we can get into that later.  The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is the supposed true story about a team of British commandos involved in something called "Operation Postmaster" during World War II.  In real life this team snuck aboard a couple of supply ships the German Navy had in neutral West Africa and sailed them into international waters where they were taken over by the British Navy.  The raid was apparently opposed by the British Admiralty but was sanctioned by Winston Churchill himself.

Well so much for the facts.  In this telling of the story these British commandos are a bunch of carefree devils as they race around shooting German soldiers and sailors with machine guns equipped with silencers and make no mistake about it they shot a lot of guys while they crack a lot of jokes.  They are assisted by a British agent played by Mexican actor Eiza González,  not that there is anything wrong with that.  The rest of the actors are a mixed bag of American and British performers.

 

This film was directed by Guy Ritchie who would seem the perfect guy to mix his mild black humor with lots of over the top violence.  But for some reason Ritchie doesn't seem up to the task this time.  The film straddles between attempts at James Bondian quip type humor and all out dead seriousness.  Ritchie can't seem to find the tone for this film.  Instead the film degenerates into a shoot and blow things up extravagance during the last part of the story.  I guess if you are in the mood for watching a lot of German soldiers get shot up, this is the film for you.  

 

The film ends with one of those "American Graffati" endings where they show the real pictures of the commando team with a little blurb about each of them. In real life these characters in this film were killed during various covert operations during World War II.  However there is no place for that kind of ending in this film.  So much for the based on a true story credit that the film shows at the beginning of this story. 

The film was written by Paul Tamasy,  Eric Johnson,  Arash Amel and Guy Ritchie.  The running time is 120 minutes.

2019 - THE GENTLEMEN, Guy Ritchie goes to the well again.

If you like Guy Ritchie's films you will probably enjoy yet another variation on his patented crooks betraying crooks formula which can be traced all the way back to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  The Gentlemen is another reprise of that film. 

Matthew McConaughey is an American who runs a big marijuana growing empire in England.  He decides he wants out of the business and makes a deal with a rich American billionaire to sell his pot business and retire with his hot wife played by Michelle Dockery (wearing very high high heels).  Dockery for as good looking as she is plays a very tough cookie.  Let the double crosses commence particualy with the involvement of a shady private investigator played by the amusing Hugh Grant.

 

After lots of tough guy talk and the usual outrageous violence that Guy Ritchie specalizes in it all comes to a conclusion.  As is typical you almost have to keep a score card of who is doing what to whom in a Guy Ritchie film.

 

For a Guy Ritchie film there's really nothing new here but I suppose it's a decent enough times killer with emphasis on the killer part since lots of people get knocked off throughout this film.

Written by Guy Ritchie, the running time is 113 minutes.

2023 - OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE - an entertaining action thriller

Kind of a mouth full for a film title.  This action comedy from Guy Ritchie seems like it could be a part of his Man From Uncle film universe.  Guy Ritchie likes to work with the same actors in this case Jason Statham, Hugh Grant and Josh Hartnett to name a couple.  In this film he's added the comedian Aubrey Plaza and "Westley" from The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes.

The plot is about a team of intelligence agents out to recover some gizmo called "The Handle" which is some kind of super weapon or something from Billionaire Hugh Grant (in a very funny performance).  Grant has a thing about Hollywood actors so secret agent Statham (in a real amusing deadpan performance) and his team recruit an action star played by John Hartnett (another funny performance), to get inside Grant's estate.  Along the way Statham and his team must do battle with a rival bunch of spies to get "The Handle."

 

This is all fairly entertaining stuff and it lets Ritchie stage his usual over the top action scenes.  But for nonsence like this, all of the fighting and running around is very entertaining.  As I indicated earlier this film reminds me of Ritchie's underrated action film The Man From Uncle a film that also featured Hugh Grant although he's a lot funnier here.

 

This film unfortunately was released while the COVID pandemic was going on so it didn't do particularly well at the box office, it's still entertaining.

The screenplay is by Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson and Bill Block.  The running time is 114 minutes.

2015 - THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. hasn't anyone seen a James Bond film?

An attempt to film a 60's James Bond type of spy thriller with a 21st century vibe.  This film seems more concerned with dressing it's cast up in cool looking clothing ensembles than actually chasing the bad guys who are (what else) an evil band of leftover Nazis looking to purchase (what else) an atomic bomb.

The cast certainly tries to be super cool in that old Sean Connery kind of way and I guess they sort of pull it off.  Again, everyone is dressed to the "nines" and the lead Henry Cavill looks good in a three piece suit.  The female lead someone called Alicia Vikander has a cool pair of sunglasses and the Russian guy sports snappy looking semi casual clothing.

I'm not sure why this film was called The Man from U.N.C.L.E since the U.N.C.L.E. organization is not even mentioned until the end of the film.  In fact the film could have easily been titled "Son of Bond" or Operation Kid Brother, although that title has already been taken.

The director Guy Ritchie films every scene with as much zippy style as he can muster which is probably more to the detriment of the film.  It seems he isn't content to just tell tell the story he wants to smother it with lots of kinetic editing.  Maybe that's for the best since the film actually doesn't have much story.  It's just three actors walking around in sharp looking 60's outfits.

116 minutes, screenplay by Guy Ritchie and Lionel Wigram.

2001, 2002 - THE HIRE, glorified, car commercials.

The marketing department at BMW got the brilliant idea to hire 8 top directors and have them shoot short films with the actor Clive Owen racing around in different model BMWs.

AMBUSH, by John Frankenheimer, a good car chase film.  Frankenheimer had directed Grand Prix and Ronin so he knew how to film exciting chases.

CHOSEN, by Ang Lee.  Also a fairly decent car chase film.  Probably the only interesting thing in it, Lee's little inside joke about The Hulk his big budget flop was the next film he directed.

THE FOLLOW, directed by the artsy fartsy Wong Kar-Wai, aims to be a mood piece but is just boring.

STAR, directed by Guy Ritchie and starring his then wife Madonna.  Madonna looks pretty bad and the film is about the driver embarrassing and humiliating her.  Almost prescient considering how Madonna and Ritchie's marriage ended.

POWDER KEG, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu wallows in it's stylization and pretentiousness, no fun.

HOSTAGE, directed by John Woo, only goes to prove that Woo should stick to filming scenes with Chow Yun-fat shooting thousands of bullets into guys instead of staging car chases.

TICKER, directed by Joe Carnahan, probably the best short film of the 2nd season, to bad Carnahan couldn't have brought this kind of interest to The A Team.

BEAT THE DEVIL, directed by Tony Scott.  The most annoying of all these short films, an attempt at a supernatural/ comedy/ action short film.  Filmed as usual by Scott like he had irritable bowel syndrome.

 Ambush and Ticker are probably the only two worth checking out.  This series is kicking around on YouTube.

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2009 - SHERLOCK HOLMES, hated it

A  boring movie about a guy named Sherlock Holmes/Matt Helm/James Bond/Indiana Jones, who saves the world from an evil genius bent on taking over, haven't seen that plot for about a week or so.  The movie is directed by Guy Ritchie who is attempting to recapture his glory days as one of England's most stylish directors.

What we have here is the typically expensive holiday movie with lots of CGI effects, over the top action scenes and some decent actors trying their best to make the film a little interesting.  This is the usual stuff a movie studio thinks audience's want to see.

The movie uses the Conan Doyle characters, but they really aren't like the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of the Doyle stories.  Sherlock Holmes, the ultimate "Mr. Know It All" is played by Robert Downey Jr., who is hot again thanks to Ironman.  Downey's OK if kind of tiresome.  Jude Law is an overly athletic Dr. Watson but at least he's British.  Rachel McAdams is Irene Alder who is in the movie as Sherlock Holmes's love interest which is a complete change in her character from the Conan Doyle story she appeared in.   It would have been nice if Rachel McAdams had bothered to attempt an accent or even to act.  She's not very sexy and wouldn't have made the  cut as one of Matt Helm's slay girls.

The director Guy Ritchie digs out his old tricks from his previous films Snatch and Lock Stock and  Two Smoking Barrels.  He uses lots of his slo-mo and sped up camera effects to make the action scenes interesting but after about the 2nd fight scene like that it's just tiresome.   The computer effects used to recreate late 1800's London look unusually phony even for computer effects. 

 

 Sherlock Holmes is one of the most famous and unique fictional characters ever created, to bad they couldn't have written a better story for him for this movie.  Some critics have pointed out the similarity in story between this movie and Young Sherlock Holmes and there is no question the plots have a lot in common.  This is not meant as a complement as that was a pretty lame original Sherlock Holmes movie as well. I'm all for new and original Sherlock Holmes stories but rehashing Goldfinger or even  Quantum of Solace or some other old James Bond movie isn't my idea of a good time.  

About the only thing of note in this film are the ending credits which are kind of stylish, but that's only after sitting through 2 hours of this  junk.

 

Wtitten by  Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg, the running time is 129 minutes.