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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Wendy Ide

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre review – Jason Statham fails to thrill in Guy Ritchie’s spy caper

Jason Statham, Josh Hartnett and Aubrey Plaza in Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre.
I spy… Jason Statham, Josh Hartnett and Aubrey Plaza in Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre. AP Photograph: Daniel Smith/AP

With the Bond franchise taking itself rather seriously these days, and Bond himself missing in action, there’s a vacancy for a wise-cracking, globe-trotting secret agent with a taste for the high life. And Jason Statham hereby throws his hat into the ring. In this flashy but hollow action adventure from Guy Ritchie, Statham plays Orson Fortune, a spy with a formidable skill set and an expense account to match. Orson’s team, including minxy tech genius Sarah (Aubrey Plaza), is employed by the British government to investigate the theft of a mystery item, and to secure it – whatever it is – before it hits the black market. Brokering the deal is shady arms trader Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant).

And here’s the problem for Statham’s super spy: for all the Ukrainian gangsters he nuts and helicopters he pilots, Orson Fortune is just not particularly interesting or fleshed out as a character. Plaza and Grant, meanwhile, steal every scene they touch.

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Watch a trailer for Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre.
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