When a piece of technology, known only as “The Handle” is stolen from its developers, the British government is tasked with getting it back.
Of course, nobody knows exactly what the Handle is, who stole it or who wants to buy it. And the British government doesn’t want to get its hands dirty by sending in its own secret agents. That would only open the door for other governments to get involved as well. Instead, they prefer to outsource this job to mercenaries-for-hire.
Enter Orson Fortune.
Orson has a unique set of skills and crack team that can get in, get the job done and get out quickly. But he’s also a bit of an administrative nightmare due to the toll of his lavish “business” expenses. (He’s been known to blow an entire year’s budget on fine wine.)
Nathan, the man within the government who contracted Orson, tells Orson he won’t be getting paid his usual this fee time around—that he’ll be doing this job because he’s a patriot.
Orson agrees because, well, he is a bit of a patriot. And the nature of the stolen technology threatens national security.
Unfortunately, Orson’s team isn’t the only one going after the Handle. And if the mercenary leader hopes to stop them, Orson will need to make a few unconventional additions to his team, including a sharp-tongued American hacker and a famous movie star.
Orson’s team members are committed to their task. They’re willing to put their lives on the line to see it through. They have each other’s backs. And they even manage to get a not-so-good guy to donate a large sum of money to a charity in the process.
A few men wear traditional Arab garb that is sometimes affiliated with Islamic beliefs.
I’m not really sure what the writers had in mind when they wrote the lines for Sarah (the American hacker), but her lewd comments throughout the film are frankly kind of embarrassing. It’s not clear if she’s trying to fit into the boys’ club with her crass comments (since every other person on Orson’s team is a guy) or if she’s just trying to make Orson uncomfortable. (Though his facial reactions suggest that he’s more annoyed at her unprofessionalism.)
In fact, the only person who acts more inappropriately than Sarah (at least in terms of sexual banter) is Greg, the billionaire black-market arms dealer brokering the sale of the Handle. Greg, as it turns out, has a bit of a penchant for stealing the girlfriends of movie stars. So, when Sarah pretends to be just that, Greg makes his desires for her known, often crudely.
Several women wear leotards to model jewelry; a closeup of some jewels reveals much of one woman’s cleavage, as well. Women wear revealing outfits in other scenes, too. We hear many crass comments about sex, including some colorful verbiage for male and female anatomy. Sarah slaps Orson’s rear as a joke. We see couples lying in bed together (a man is shirtless in one of these shots).
Orson practically blackmails Danny, the movie star, to join the team by revealing they found the footage of Danny having an affair with his sister-in-law. We also hear that a man’s girlfriend is cheating on him. There’s talk of a someone’s unfaithfulness.
Danny, admiring Greg’s lifestyle, jokes that if Sarah isn’t into him, he might be.
It should be no shock that a movie starring Jason Statham involves a lot of fistfights, knife fights and gunfights. There’s a lot of bloodshed here. And when people aren’t straight up killed, they’re sometimes hospitalized (we hear about one combatant’s multiple broken bones and crushed testicles in one instance).
Grenades and rockets kill people. When Sarah and Danny get into a car chase, she shoots at one of their pursuers, causing the car to drive off a cliff. Later, Orson blows up a tunnel using a helicopter’s rocket launcher in order to stop Sarah and Danny’s other pursuer. Bombs go off elsewhere, too, though these are meant to destroy property, not people.
Several people are murdered, execution style.
A man fakes his suicide by throwing a tourist over the edge of a balcony; we don’t actually see this violent event, but we do see the victim’s body on the ground. The same guy then tries to knock Orson over the edge, but Orson’s quick reflexes instead result in the attacker going over the edge to his death.
Greg, we learn, earned his fortune selling weapons to teenagers and terrorists. (And someone calls Greg the “Dark Angel of Merciless Death.”) We hear about death threats to the loved ones of several characters.
When two members of his team get tasered, Orson vengefully goes after their attackers, using their own tasers against them in the groin and throat. A man is choked out. Another man crashes a motorcycle, injuring his arm. An actor shoots a gun into the air in frustration (it’s unclear if the gun is real or a prop). Fans of Danny playfully punch him in the gut (he does his own stunts, so they believe he can handle it).
A man has a heart attack and dies. We hear about orphans of war.
We hear 25 uses of the f-word and two uses of the s-word. God’s name is abused twice, once paired with “d–mit.” We also hear “a–”; the British expletives “bloody” and “b-llocks; and several crude phrases for male and female body parts.
If characters aren’t actively shooting a gun, then it’s safe to say they probably have a drink in hand. In fact, Orson is criticized for his indulgence in expensive booze. And Sarah makes a comment about getting drunk. We also see some people smoking cigars.
People lie, manipulate, betray, steal, bribe and blackmail. Orson sells stolen goods for his own profit. He also goes overbudget indulging himself. A man is blackmailed into donating to charity.
There’s a bit of toilet humor. Someone jokes about cancer, but it’s poorly received. Some describes needy orphans as “annoying.”
Greg is an egotist. He suggests that money can, in fact, make a man happy. Several fans invade Danny’s personal space for a photograph and ignore his protestations.
Someone turns traitor. Orson’s team is repeatedly frustrated by a competing team searching for the Handle.
If you’ve seen one Jason Statham movie, then you’ve seen them all. Well … that might not be totally fair. But if you’ve seen a Jason Statham movie before, then you can probably make a good guess about what expect here, content-wise.
Violence is the name of the game. Lots of bloodshed and gunshots and—I can only assume—grave digging. Language is harsh too, with 25 uses of the f-word alone. Combine that with plenty of innuendo, and you have Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre.
Though maybe the movie would have been more appropriately titled “Operation Misfortune.”
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
