177. Operation Mincemeat; movie review

 

OPERATION MINCEMEAT

Cert 12A

128 mins

BBFC advice: Contains infrequent strong language, moderate injury detail, sex, violence

"That was brilliant," proclaimed my dad who was born just two months after the Second World War was declared.

My mum, who is ten months older concurred. She also thought the intricate plotting of Operation Mincemeat was a winner.

They had bought me Ben Macintyre's book for Christmas so, having read it, I was a little less effusive about its adaptation.

My gripe was that a fabulous, unusual spy thriller had somehow become bogged down in a fictitious and unnecessary romance.

Operation Mincemeat stars Colin Firth as Ewen Montagu, a retiring Queen's Counsel, who is drafted into the ultra-secret committee which specialises in deceiving The Nazis.

Much against the wishes of its chairman (Jason Isaacs), Montagu becomes a key figure in a daring plot to persuade Hitler that the allies will invade Greece rather than Sicily after the North Africa campaign.

To do this, he and his team work to enact a plan suggested by Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) to cause a dead body of an officer to be found with ultra-secret documents outlining the Greek invasion.

It is a concept which is fraught with potential peril - not least that they first have to find a suitable body and then make sure the corpse emerges into enemy hands.

Operation Mincemeat is a riveting true story and many of its intricacies and potential pitfalls are highlighted in John Madden's film.

Unfortunately, however, it becomes sidetracked by awkward flirting between Montagu and one of his team, played by Kelly Macdonald.

It also underplays the very important role in the deception by Ian Fleming who went on to create James Bond.

Those quibbles aside, it is a rollocking good yard and Montagu and Macfadyen, who characters both have particular quirks, bounce off each other rather well.

I also enjoyed Penelope Wilton's voice of reason as Montagu's sister.

Reasons to watch: Riveting true story

Reasons to avoid: Daft overdone romance

Laughs: Two

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 8/10

Did you know? Ian Fleming, who played a key part in Operation Mincemeat, gleaned several key ideas for his James Bond books from his time in British intelligence. He called his boss M because he scared him like his mother.

The final word. John Madden: “The characters, the real people in our story, are themselves become wound-up, bound up, lost in the fiction that they're creating. They have the illusion of power over what they're doing, but actually as the story goes on, that power ebbs away to the point where they're left with uncertainty and fear and terror of how high the stakes are.” Empire

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