The trailer for the movie "The unit for ungentlemanly warfare"/Forum Film
A few years ago, the Jewish-American spiritual woman Dara Horne published a book with the provocative name "The World Loves Dead Jews". She is right, of course. The world in general and popular culture in particular are dying for helpless Jewish victims, and there are endless examples of this. But on the other hand, you can also write a book called "Cinema Loves Dead Nazis". Since World War II, a sub-genre of movies has developed in which Nazis are beaten out of shape, and it is more common today than ever. We got an example of this in the Finnish "Sisu", which appeared a week ago on Netflix and jumped to the top of the viewing charts, and now also in the tireless Guy Ritchie's "Ungentlemanly Combat Unit", which arrived in cinemas this weekend.
Contemporary cinema loves dead Nazis simply because it is scared to death. Action movies need to have good guys and bad guys, but who can be bad guys these days? If you put Chinese, Arabs, Colombians or any other group on the standard of the villains, it would mean too great a commercial risk, and of course also cancellation by the progressives, who would accuse you of racism. So what's left? Aliens - or Nazis, because no one will be offended by their name. Maybe one day we will reach the day when film scholars in New York will say that the Nazis were actually victims of colonialism and the films against them are offensive, but we are not there yet.
Personally, as fun as it is to see dead Nazis, I'm a bit tired of this type, which has exhausted itself and represents to me more artistic laziness than any real interest in the subject. Cinema, on the other hand, is not tired of returning again and again to the oldest trick in the book.
And so, Ritchie is very loosely based here on the story of covert action against the Nazis in World War II. The film describes how Winston Churchill assembles a group of several special agents, all of whom walk the line between insanity and genius. He sends them to the Gulf of Guinea in Africa to sabotage German warships. Since this is an underground mission, the risk is twofold - if the British catch them, they will go to prison, and if the Germans capture them, they will probably execute them. The fighters are played by a bunch of gnarled actors, including Henry Cavill who once played Superman, Alan Richeson from the series "Reach" and Henry Golding remembered from "Surprisingly Rich". The auxiliary force working alongside them includes a Jewish-German spy and a black secret agent.
One of the secret service men at Churchill's side is none other than Ian Fleming, who invented the character of James Bond. "Ungentlemanly Combat Unit" reminds a little of the movies starring Agent 007, but mostly reminds of "Dishonorable Bastards". Til Schweiger, who appeared in Tarantino's film, also stars here, this time as the main Nazi.
It is too short to list the other tangential points. Like Dishonorable Bastards, Ritchie's film also refers to the World War II films made before it, salutes and winks at them, and also makes fun of them. Like him, he also describes how two different groups work simultaneously against the Nazis, here too one of them includes a Jewish woman and a black man, and here too everything culminates in a magnificent Nazi party. Here, too, the identity of one of the characters is revealed due to a small mistake related to the language, and the list goes on. I would suggest that Tarantino file a lawsuit, if he didn't himself specialize in pocketing previous films like this.
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Anyway, Tarantino has nothing to worry about. His "Dishonorable Bastards", which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful films of all time, is many times better, to say the least. "Unit for Ungentlemanly Warfare" is pale and generic, and looks like they made it for streaming and then decided to release it in theaters. Richie directs non-stop. His "Contract" was released in cinemas a year ago and "The Gentlemen", a new series penned by him, recently appeared on Netflix. No wonder then that his content sometimes looks like it came off the assembly line, as does his new film. The action is not exciting, the jokes are not funny, the situations are quite random and most of the characters are not interesting. The result is harmless, but a week after watching it, I remember very little.
Still, there are two things worth noting here. We have already seen many representations of Churchill in British films, but this time it is the usual comic representation - played by Rory Keener, the legendary statesman is revealed here as a kind of brat. More importantly, the Jewish spy becomes one of the most significant and dominant characters in the plot. Unlike many World War II films before him, Ritchie is careful to link the war to the Holocaust and emphasize the Jewish motivation to fight the Nazis and take revenge on them.
Played by Eisa Gonzalez, this spy turns out to be one of the most impressive Jewish women we've seen recently in Hollywood - on a par with Shoshana from "Dishonorable Bastards". This is a character full of power and resourcefulness, and above all full of pride in the Jewish people. In one of the highlights, she delivers a monologue about the uniqueness and survival of this nation, and needless to say why it is so important and inspiring to hear it right now. The book "The World Loves Dead Jews" is not relevant to this film. For Ritchie, the Jews and Jewishness are anything but victims.
Although Richie himself is not Jewish, the relationship he had at the time with Madonna brought him closer to acceptance, and since then he has developed an affinity for Judaism. He speaks Hebrew, named his children Raphael, Rivka and Levi, and often expressed his admiration for the Jewish heritage. "The Unit for Ungentlemanly Warfare" brings all of this to the fore.
But if Richie admires the Jewish people so much, couldn't he find a Jewish actress to play the heroine? Mexican-Catholic Eiza Gonzalez is an electrifying actress, but she is not Jewish, and it is also a bit ridiculous to believe her in the character of a German Jew: this is the most unconvincing hack we have seen. The actress's only connection to Judaism is that she once dated Timothy Shalam.
When Quentin Tarantino cast Shoshana in Dishonorable Bastards, he looked for a Jewish French actress and found one - the pulsating Melanie Lauren. Richie could have done it too. Can you imagine a Hollywood director sinning like that towards some other minority group? What else can be said? Only two words in the language used in the climactic moments of "The Unit for Ungentlemanly Warfare" - Well, Schwinn.