Henry Cavill's WWII flop The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare hit No. 3 on Netflix US in under 24 hours
Guy Ritchie and Henry Cavill’s WWII film sits behind only The Seemingly Perfect Family and Why Did I Get Married Again? in the US.
Right, here's a story that shows just how weird Hollywood fortunes can be. Henry Cavill and Guy Ritchie keep teaming up for action-packed, male-heavy flicks, but the results at the box office have ranged from underwhelming to outright disastrous. Case in point: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. This World War II adventure bombed when it hit cinemas a couple of years back, but now it's landed on Netflix—and apparently, that's where it was meant to be all along.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare has raced up to number three in Netflix's US film chart — not bad for a movie that barely made a splash in cinemas.
Streaming Redemption
If you've forgotten this one existed, you're not alone. In its theatrical run, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare went largely unnoticed. You'd expect more, given Cavill is on every bookmaker's list for the next James Bond, and Ritchie can still claim Lock, Stock and Snatch. Together, though, their previous outing, 2015's The Man from U.N.C.L.E., made just $110 million from a reported $75 million budget. Hardly earth-shattering.
Now, two years on from its dud debut, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is suddenly everywhere on streaming. Netflix’s audience seems far more interested than cinema-goers ever were. As of today, it’s third on the US Netflix film charts—just behind The Seemingly Perfect Family and Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Again? Notably, it’s been up for less than 24 hours.
It’s all a bit of a moment for Guy Ritchie as well, with the new season of The Gentlemen in Netflix’s TV top 10, and MobLand making waves over on Paramount+.
Bullets, Banter, and Big Names
In terms of tone, this isn’t exactly Saving Private Ryan. Think closer to Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: it’s a ‘guys on a mission’ affair, packed with bravado and banter. Cavill leads as Gus March-Phillips, a slightly unhinged black ops leader working straight under Winston Churchill’s orders. The plot? Assemble a ragtag gang, blow up a Nazi U-boat facility, and help drag the US into the fight. Hardly subtle stuff.
- Henry Cavill (Gus March-Phillips) heads up the squad
- Alan Ritchson
- Hero Fiennes Tiffin
- Eiza Gonzalez
- Til Schweiger
- Alex Pettyfer
- Henry Golding
This is the sort of film where the cast list reads like a who’s who of action B-listers. Unsurprisingly, critical opinions were mixed. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 68% with critics (that’s, let’s say, watchable), while MovieWeb’s own review torched the script and called the characters instantly forgettable—never great for a story ‘based on real events’. Still, with a 91% user score on Rotten Tomatoes, regular viewers seem far more forgiving on the streaming sofa than they ever were in the stalls.
Back-to-Back Flops?
Here’s something that might surprise you: this is actually the second film in a loose ‘trilogy’ of Guy Ritchie/Henry Cavill collaborations, though none are connected plot-wise. The most recent one, In the Grey—which also starred Jake Gyllenhaal—somehow managed to do even worse. That one saw yet another covert team doing covert things in generic modern hotspots. Critics took the hatchet to it (52% on Rotten Tomatoes), and audiences apparently didn’t show up at all. The final tally? Just $27 million at the box office against a $59 million production bill.
At the time of writing, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is holding tight as the third most watched movie on Netflix in the US.