Film Review: Operation Mincemeat is a mature, intelligent spy thriller
Matthew Macfadyen as Charles Cholmondeley, Colin Firth as Ewen Montagu and Johnny Flynn as Ian Fleming in Operation Mincemeat
Based on a true story, and one that is arguably the single most important instance of deception in the annals of espionage, (12A) opens in 1943 with the Allies planning to invade Nazi-held Sicily and needing a cunning scheme to persuade the German High Command that they intend to invade Greece.
Charged with inventing an audacious ruse, intelligence officers Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) take up a plan first proposed by the young Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn) — yes, that Ian Fleming — and set about creating a scheme of misdirection on an epic scale, upon the success of which rests the fate of the free world.
Adapted by Michelle Ashford from Ben McIntyre’s book of the same name, and directed by John Madden, is a wonderfully tense spy thriller, and not least because the audience already knows how it will all end. Where Ashford’s script scores is in blending the big picture — the invasion of Sicily was, of course, one of the most crucial moments in WWII — with the more prosaic, everyday concerns of the protagonists, whose lives are riven by personal, professional and romantic jealousies.
Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen are strong leads, and marvellous at exuding the old stiff-upper-lip Blitz spirit, and they get strong support from Kelly Macdonald as their fellow conspirator Jean Leslie, Penelope Wilton as Ewen Montagu’s life-long confidante, and Simon Russell Beale, who plays Winston Churchill as if he were a mortally wounded bulldog.
The allusions to James Bond and are a little misleading; is a mature, intelligent spy thriller that packs an emotional punch.
(cinema release)
