Operation Mincemeat
In 1943, two British intelligence officers concoct Operation Mincemeat, wherein their plan to drop a corpse with false papers off the coast of Spain would fool Nazi spies into believing the Allied forces were planning to attack by way of Greece rather than Sicily.
- Released: 2021-11-06
- Runtime: 128 minutes
- Genre: Drama, History, War
- Stars: Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, Johnny Flynn, Kelly Macdonald, Penelope Wilton, Jason Isaacs, Mark Gatiss, Hattie Morahan, Paul Ritter, Tom Wilkinson, Simon Russell Beale, Lorne MacFadyen, Markus von Lingen, Ruby Bentall, Alex Jennings, Ellie Haddington, Nicholas Rowe, Will Keen, Mark Bonnar, James Fleet, Alexander Beyer, Nico Birnbaum, Pep Tosar, Alba Brunet, Pedro Casablanc, Óscar Zafra, Javier Godino, Jonjo O'Neill, Amy Marston, Gabrielle Creevy, Simon Rouse, Paul Lancaster, Michael Bott, Charlotte Hamblin, Rufus Wright
- Director: John Madden
Comments
- Essex_Rider - 8 January 2023
Not bad but gets a little lost in places
I remember watching the original 'The Man Who Never Was', staring Clifton Webb and the wonderful Gloria Grahame. The original, because it was filmed in 1955 had a more authentic air about it, but the director still packed a punch with this version. Where I think it falls over a little is the minutiae of the protagonists lives. It really wasn't that necessary and I felt it a little drawn out. In the original, Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu was extremely sympathetic to the dead man and to the dead mans father. He was treated with gentle dignity and respect. The corpse was never shown, perhaps a little too graphic at the time but in this version, he clearly is. This one was not only shown scant respect, his sister was even offered a handful of cash to walk away from her dead brother. They also commentated on how 'ripe' he was becoming, whereas in the original, this was never mentioned. In the original, the spy, sent by the Germans to ascertain if the major was genuine sent Patrick O'Reilly, an Irishman. We know through history that Ireland, although supposedly neutral, actively assisted the Nazi's with intelligence gathering. In this version, and in todays climate, they decided to go a little woke. - grantss - 13 December 2022
Not great: dumbed down and unnecessarily drawn out
1943. Having driven the Germans and Italians out of North Africa, the Allies are planning to invade Sicily. Resistance is expected to be very stiff. In order to divert enemy forces away from Sicily, British Intelligence is aiming to convince the Germans that the invasion will occur in Greece instead. As part of this they intend to leak false information on the Greek invasion to the Germans through having a dead body wash up in Spain.
Not a great film. While based on an actual historic event, one that was quite the stuff of spy novels, one that had a reasonable impact on the Allied invasion of Sicily, this film doesn't really do that justice.
The espionage aspect is okay, with the details of the deception being reasonably interesting. However, this is diluted by unnecessary subplots padding the script. The love story (stories...) involving Jean add nothing to the plot, just make the movie longer and ruin any momentum of the main plot. Similarly many other little sub-plots are just filler and have the same effect.
In addition, the plot is dumbed down, treating the audience like they never knew World War 2 occurred, overstating the importance of certain events, spoon-feeding information, making everything overly dramatic. Then again, that accurately reflects the intelligence and knowledge of the average modern movie watcher...
