The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Guy Ritchie shot the film in Turkey. Principal photography began on 13 February 2023 in Antalya and finished in April, part of it at the Expo fairground there. The operation underneath it is Operation Postmaster, run on the night of 14 January 1942 in Santa Isabel harbour on Fernando Po, then a Spanish island. The targets were the Italian supply ship Duchessa d’Aosta and two tugs. The distraction was not a casino but a dinner: Richard Lippett, the SOE agent living on the island, had invited the ships’ officers ashore, and 12 Italian and 2 German officers were at the table. From entering the harbour to towing the ships out took 30 minutes; the raiding party lost nobody and took 29 prisoners. The Admiralty then announced that no British or Allied ship had been near. Anders Lassen, first man aboard, was commissioned in the field; he died in Italy in 1945 and was given the Victoria Cross posthumously. A good fit if you know the real raid was a quiet towing job rather than a firefight and count Ritchie turning it into a team adventure as a choice. Not for anyone avoiding what the BBFC calls strong violence and injury detail; the board separately notes a woman hanging by her wrists, implied to have been tortured to death.