British director Guy Ritchie's previous collaboration with action star Jason Statham yielded The Keeper of Tina, a tight and sweet revenge thriller that had no trouble being one of the better films in the genre last year.
Unfortunately, their current collaboration, "Operation Fortune: Exercise War," struggles to replicate the feat.
However, the result is far from a complete disaster, and fans of the two are unlikely to complain too much.
Basically, this is a low-budget version of a movie in the "Mission: Impossible" series, which mostly looks like a TV pilot for a series that I would happily watch.
Statham plays Orson Fortune, a multi-talented super-agent and lover of expensive wines, who is recruited to retrieve a secret and mysterious object that could bring about the end of the world.
To do this, Fortune and his team - which includes computer genius Sarah Fidel (Aubrey Plaza), thug and sniper JJ (Bugsy Malone) and dry-humored boss Nathan (Cary Elwes) - join them movie star Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett), and infiltrate the life of a sleazy arms dealer (Hugh Grant), who admires Francesco's films, and who mediates the sale of the desired object.
from the movie.
Hugh Grant entertains as the villain,
If this plot sounds a little familiar to you, you probably watched "The Unbearable Weight of a Giant Talent", starring Nicolas Cage, which told a not entirely different story.
But don't let that bother you.
Ritchie and Statham know the job, and even when they do it half-heartedly (as is the case this time), it still achieves its purpose.
The one who leaves a very positive impression is Aubrey Plaza, who has been popping up everywhere lately, and who gets a lot of opportunities here to demonstrate her talent as a femme fatale and as an action star.
Hugh Grant is also very entertaining as the villain, and although the script is less witty and convoluted than we are used to getting from Richie, there is no shortage of the sophisticated dialogues that have become his hallmark.
What is missing here, however, is action.
More than half an hour goes by until Statham is willing to cut someone out of shape, and it's hard to say that the chases and shootouts presented to viewers are particularly exciting or invested.
Not bad.
"Operation Fortune" may not be a smashing success, but it is light and fun, and has enough nonsense and distractions to pass the time until the release of the next installment in the "Mission: Impossible" series.
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