Jason Statham is the new spy who tried, but can’t make it. The movie review

It comes up Sky Cinema and streamed only on NOW from 17 April 2023 Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerrethe new action movie from Guy Ritchie starring Jason Statham. It has been postponed for a long time, but this time not because of the pandemic: scheduled for 2022, it has been postponed until the first months of this year to avoid problems due to the representation of some Ukrainian gangsters present in the film in conjunction with the war broke out in Ukraine. Sadly, that’s the least of his problems.

Guy Ritchie continues his partnership with the actor of the Transporters and of the saga of The expendables after the recent Wrath of Man – Wrath of Manproposing one spy action in which Statham plays Orson Fortune, super secret agent called to solve a potential global crisis. Some criminals have stolen a mysterious device known as “The Handle”. It is not known what it is capable of doing, but there are those who are willing to pay 10 billion dollars for it. In between is an arms dealer (played by Hugh Grant

) and the only way to get close to it is to get the movie star involved Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett). The team also includes the handyman played by the British rapper Bugzy Malone and especially the expert in communications and hacking Sarah, who has the face of Aubrey Plaza.

In recent years, the English director has been gripped by a particular artistic schizophrenia with fluctuating results: after his debut with Lock & Stock – Wild fools, Snatch – The Tear and the disastrous Overwhelmed by fatehas found just fame and its precise dimension in the diptych of Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. From there he perfected some of his precise authorial traits then revised in UNCLE operationin epic fantasy King Arthur and in the recent The Gentlemeni.e. films with a brilliant verve comedy and a tight assembly in the name of fun declined on genres that are not exactly hilarious by definition.

With respect to this direction undertaken, Operation Fortune however, it makes him take several steps backwards

. In the story written with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies there are no flashes of originality, but only a mild attempt to build a character around Jason Statham that can guarantee a more or less lasting franchise, a sort of wannabes James Bond or Jason Bourne which, however, gets lost in lazy constructions of the characters, characterized by small details (such as the fact that the protagonist likes wine) but completely repulsive from an empathetic point of view because they are absolutely flat, and the re-proposition of continuous clichés of the spy action genre.

Particularly sensational is the comparison with Red Noticeanother recent and disappointing Netflix action: Jason Statham is interchangeable with Dwayne JohnsonAubrey Plaza stole the red dress from Gal Gadot and Josh Hartnett the white tuxedo a Ryan Reynolds. Another obvious comparison is the one with Mr C’s Talentin which the parody version of Nicolas Cage uses his fame to infiltrate a group of criminals. Just as happens in the plan set up in Operation Fortune. The movie of Rawson Marshall had at least a discreet final flicker on his side, that of Tom Gormican the charisma of its protagonist: Guy Ritchie on the other hand doesn’t even have a pair in hand to be able to bluff.

The most valuable element, i.e the use of the phantom Handle as a MacGuffin he soon drops his mystery and all that’s left are two-dimensional characters who proceed by jokes, double entendres and an apparent invincibility that quickly resets the tension. The content is a mix of things seen and reviewed, the form is far from the directorial whims of its author: Orson Fortune is the new spy who was after usbut in this (first) case it failed.

Photos: Saturn Films, Burr! productions

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