Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre Movie Review

“Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” is a spy thriller that follows a well-trod path. All the previous iterations of James Bond, Mission: Impossible, Man from UNCLE, and even Our Man Flint have taken the suave but deadly super-spy on dangerous missions. Here, a small team sets out to retrieve an important item (but it is unknown), stolen by a dangerous group (identities are unknown), and the item is to be auctioned off (to parties unknown).

British intelligence is in an uproar, because a super-secret device has been snatched out of Odessa. What is does, and who has taken it, is still a mystery. But a low-key, but high-powered, man named Nathan Jasmine (played by Cary Elwes) has connections to a team of spies. These folks can get the job done, even when they don’t know what they are looking for. Nathan calls on his most capable top agent-for-hire – Orson Fortune (played by Jason Statham).

Fortune needs a new team, so Nathan will be helping him. But there will be two ‘footmen’, who are spies able to hack computes, fight bad guys and shoot really big guns. One of these guys is named J. J. Davies (played by Bugzy Malone). The other one is Sarah Fidel (played by Aubrey Plaza). There was Fortune’s last job with a fellow named Mike (played by Peter Ferdinando), but Mike was a double-crossing rogue agent.

Sarah finds out that a group of criminals out of Ukraine has stolen some super-hush-hush device that is called “The Handle”. That is because they could not name it the “Rabbit’s Foot” (see – Mission: Impossible 3), nor could they call it “God’s Eye” (see – Fast & Furious 7). But these thieves have it, and will use a middleman to sell it to the highest bidder. That middleman is a very wealthy arms-dealer named Greg Simmonds (played by Hugh Grant). He will host a charity event on his yacht in Cannes. How can Fortune’s team get invited?

All they need is one new member on the team. A famous actor, Danny Francesco (played by Josh Hartnett), is blackmailed into working with them. He has an invite to meet Simmonds at the gala event. Danny and Sarah go as a couple, and Fortune passes as Danny’s agent. Greg Simmonds is a massive fan of Danny – so he invites Danny and Sarah to his private island resort. This is where the where secret item called “The Handle” will be bought by an unknown party from the thieves who stole the device. It has unknown capabilities, so nobody knows exactly what it does, or how dangerous it can be.

Orson Fortune is not with Danny and Sarah, so he works with Nathan and J. J. instead. He goes to the hideout of the robbers to fake a robbery. His real intention is to install secret backdoor code that Sarah designed to break into the thieves computers. But while he is there, he does a decent job robbing the thieves. Orson is also tailing some suspects who might be working Simmonds. By every time he is about to get somewhere, he gets interrupted by other rogue agents. These guys all work for Mike – the guy that used to be on Fortune’s team.

But when there are fights to be fought and big guns to be fired – the action gets up hot and heavy. There are many different locations, and many modes of luxury transportation. Luxury private jets, luxury yachts, high-powered muscle cars – yeah, there are plenty of ways to get around. Nathan is in charge, so to speak, and when he reports back to the higher-ups in the British government – they know that this transaction must be stopped at all costs. Greg Simmonds must be stopped from selling the super-powerful “The Handle” to the group that is planning to buy it.

Orson Fortune is ready to take on any of these deadly opponents. He has the support of Nathan Jasmine, and he is working with a capable team, Sarah Fidel and J. J. Davies. Even gets some reasonable work out of the actor – Danny Francesco. But when he needs help the most – he get some unexpected assistance from Greg Simmonds. Everyone works together to take down the group of big bad guys, and overcome Mike – because he is jerk. Will it all work out?

“Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” is a pretty big title for this movie, it seems to be more of an aspiration, then an inspiration. It revolves around a pretty standard framework for spy movies, and it goes a little overboard on the plot twists. This par for the course for a Guy Ritchie movie – the more layers of plot, the better. Nothing here is unique or new, but it is done in a clever way, with plenty of quips and snide comments.

Jason Statham is his average Force-of-Nature strong man willing to bend the rules to stomp out the bad guy. Aubrey Plaza is fun in the role of a computer whiz that also has a Black Belt and a PhD in Witty Remarks. Hugh Grant is dashing as the lovable scoundrel who can play both sides against each other. Josh Hartnett has a good time as an actor with the most difficult role – playing himself.

“Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” is a movie that uses the ‘disguise of battle’ concept to get a group of trained agents into an excuse for a world-trotting adventure fighting the bad guys. But it is a standard operation…