Thursday, August 24, 2023

Issue:

Mackay and Whitsunday Life

Movie Review

John Madden’s newest drama, Operation Mincemeat, is a somewhat microcosm of World War II British operations; a time of devastation and horror, and in the face of it, unequivocable hope. Its true to life story – the British deception operation to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily – is a macabre tale of espionage brilliance that contributed to Ally victory.

The British lost countless lives in the war, but it was ironically “The Man Who Never Was”, a tramp who lost his life after eating rat poison on the streets of London away from the fighting, that would become one of its most important.

Madden’s film tells the astounding story of the men who cooked up a high-risk disinformation strategy centred on that dead man.

Five weeks before the invasion of the Italian shores by allies to break Hitler’s grip on occupied Europe, an impossible challenge presents itself: how to protect the invasion force from potential annihilation.

Two remarkable intelligence officers, Colin Firth’s Ewen Montagu and Matthew Macfadyen’s Charles Cholmondeley, dream up the most inspired and improbable strategy of the war: to convince the Germans that the English will invade Greece, set in motion by a corpse with fake classified information washing ashore in Spain.

That information was a correspondence between two British generals suggesting the Allies would invade Greece and Sardinia, and that Sicily was merely a feint – an extraordinary gamble.

Madden’s telling of one of war history’s greatest and most fanciful achievements is replete with dark humour, remarkable circumstance, and an exceptional cast – both in its talented actors and its historical figures.

It serves as an espionage tilt at a World War II story – a site greatly plundered, and often told in grandeur and sentimentality. A spy thriller that inspired the world, especially when a young Lieutenant Commander, Ian Fleming, who worked on the operation would go on to pen Casino Royal and give the world James Bond.

Operation Mincemeat (M) is coming to the Bowen Summergarden Cinema this June.

Colin Firth stars in Operation Mincemeat, which doesn't always take itself seriously because the idea at its centre "edges over into Monty Python territory".

Supplied: Transmission

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