Luke McWilliams gives his review of the 2022 British war film, Operation Mincemeat, starring Colin Firth and Johnny Flynn.
In the UK, in 1943, in the thick of WWII, Jewish lawyer Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) is celebrating his apparent retirement. After seeing his family off to the safety of the US, Montagu starts work with the secret Twenty Committee to oversee an operation drafted by one Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn) to spread disinformation in an effort to win the war.
During his war career, Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, came up with many inventive, and somewhat ridiculous, ways to outwit the enemy. Here is merely one of the real-life operations that was seen to from the pitch all the way to the delivery.
With the secret Committee comes a secret base of operations and staff. Lt. Cmdr. Montagu is joined by his secretary and dear friend Hester Leggett (Penelope Wilton), right-hand man Charles Cholmondeley (Mathew Macfadyen), and secretary Jean Leslie (Penelope Wilton). It is here where an ill-advised love triangle between our leads muddies the waters, undermining the professionalism and character of our crew, while also creating false drama when there is already so much about with very large stakes.
The tone is also off. While nonchalantly beginning the operation of preparing a body with papers of disinformation for the Nazis to find, the mood swings the other way, with characters giving sobering thought to the man behind the body very late in the piece.
Verdict: A good-looking, well-acted drama weighed down with uneven tone and manufactured, superfluous drama. 2.5 stars.
- Luke McWilliams | themovieclub.net
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