I guess I’m ok with being an outlier on this one, but this new Guy Ritchie spy movie is one of the most tedious and overlong tortures I’ve subjected myself to in theaters in a good long while. This is the Guy Ritchie I hate… and I do hate a fair number of films that other people seem to love… so maybe don’t take my word for it if you’re a fan of things like Snatch and Rocknrolla.

Operation Fortune is a major hand-wave of a plot. Someone has stolen something but the government doesn’t know what. So they send in a team of spies to figure out what it was and get it back before Bad Guys sell it on the black market.

The film distills a normal spy plot down to the honest truth… it doesn’t matter what the MacGuffin is, just say its important, wave your hands, and move on. Too bad they give it a late reveal… since… yawn. Might as well not have. It’s been done before. Recently. A lot.

On the plus side, the crackling fun soundtrack almost convinced me I was having fun with the flick. It was propulsive and energetic and, if the plot and storytelling were basic, the music was telling me to just go with it… we’re in jazzy fun spy territory here.

But wow… it’s rare to have a movie give so little thought to character, setup, back story, personality, or anything else that makes a movie a movie. It launches right into the plot, delivers too-quick description of stereotypical team members, mentions opponents like “Mike”, and drops you off in the woods without a map or compass… I hope you were paying attention because they aren’t going to explain this nonsense again.

I was so bored by this film’s version of storytelling, its tough guy posturing, its arch and cynical disregard for plot, and its BORING dialog. The movie is dialog heavy but none of it snaps, crackles, or pops. And by the time the action scenes do kick in, I was so over it.

After about twenty minutes, I wanted out of this two hour slog-fest. Maybe that’s a Me Problem though. I just don’t jibe with Guy Ritchie’s schtick sometimes. I want a story, I want narrative, I want characters who I remotely care about, not just cool actors doing… things. I want it to feel important. To matter. Pass. Hard pass.

Score: 56