Hollywood has spent more than a decade trying to figure out exactly what kind of movie star Henry Cavill should be. He's been Superman, a monster hunter, a superspy, and Sherlock Holmes, usually playing some variation of the impossibly handsome, physically imposing guy who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Cavill is quite good at that. But one of his most overlooked movies suggests he's even more entertaining when somebody lets him stop saving the world and start having some fun.
That movie is The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Guy Ritchie's 2024 World War II action-comedy available to stream for free on Tubi. Inspired by a real British covert operation, the film stars Cavill as Gus March-Phillipps, the leader of a secret team recruited to sabotage a German supply ship and cripple the Nazis' U-boat operations.
The ensemble includes Alan Ritchson, Eiza González, and Henry Golding, but Cavill is the reason to seek this one out. With an enormous mustache, a machine gun, and a grin that suggests he's having more fun than anyone should while being shot at, Cavill spends most of the movie doing something surprisingly rare in his career: completely cutting loose.
**Henry Cavill is having way too much fun**
Gus spends a remarkable amount of *The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare* smiling. Sometimes it's because his absurd plan is somehow working. Sometimes it's because he's about to kill a bunch of Nazis. Occasionally it's difficult to tell the difference.
That's what makes the performance so enjoyable. Cavill plays Gus as a man who can't quite believe someone has given him permission to do exactly what he loves most. Even when the mission goes sideways, there isn't much brooding or soul-searching. Gus simply adjusts the plan, flashes another enormous grin, and gets back to work.
It's a striking contrast to many of Cavill's most famous roles. Zack Snyder's Superman was deliberately burdened by what it meant to be Superman. The Witcher’s Geralt of Rivia isn't exactly known for his bubbly personality. Even Cavill's August Walker in Mission: Impossible — Fallout spends most of the movie looking like he'd rather punch Ethan Hunt through a bathroom wall than crack a joke.
Gus has none of that restraint.
**Guy Ritchie knows the secret to Henry Cavill**
Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that Guy Ritchie was the filmmaker who figured Cavill out, because Ritchie had already done it once.
Nearly a decade before The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Ritchie cast Cavill as Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The 2015 spy movie arrived while Cavill was still in the middle of his Superman run, but Solo gave audiences a very different version of the actor. He was charming, vain, sarcastic, and frequently funny.
Gus takes that persona and pushes it considerably further. The mustache certainly helps. So does surrounding Cavill with characters who are even more dangerous than he is. Alan Ritchson's Anders Lassen, in particular, is such an absurdly efficient killing machine that Cavill doesn't need to be the team's muscle. Ritchson can shoot arrows, throw knives, and eliminate Nazis by the dozen while Cavill gets to stand in the middle of the chaos looking like a man hosting the world's most violent bachelor party.
That division of labor allows Cavill to lean into something his more serious roles rarely exploit: the inherent comedy of looking like Henry Cavill. He's enormous. He's impossibly handsome. His voice sounds like it was engineered specifically to deliver important speeches. Ritchie doesn't ignore any of that. He just refuses to treat it reverently.
**Henry Cavill's James Bond connection**
There's another reason Gus feels particularly suited to Cavill: *The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare* brings him remarkably close to the role that has followed him for most of his career.
Cavill was just 22 when he became a finalist to play James Bond in 2006's Casino Royale, ultimately losing the role to Daniel Craig. He never became 007, but Bond-like characters have continued popping up throughout his career, including The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and his superspy in Argylle.
Ministry adds a strange bit of symmetry. Ian Fleming, played by Freddie Fox, appears as a British intelligence officer and even introduces himself with “Fleming. Ian Fleming.” The real Fleming served in British naval intelligence during World War II, experiences that would later help shape his Bond novels. The closing credits take the connection one step further, identifying the real Gus March-Phillipps as one of the inspirations for 007.
Nearly two decades after Cavill almost became Bond, he ended up playing one of the men who helped inspire him instead.
**The real story didn't have a Hollywood ending**
For as exaggerated as *The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare* can be, much of its foundation is real. The Special Operations Executive was created in 1940 to wage unconventional warfare against Nazi Germany, and Operation Postmaster really did involve British operatives secretly seizing Axis ships from a neutral Spanish island.
What happened afterward was considerably less triumphant. March-Phillipps was killed during Operation Aquatint later that year. Anders Lassen (Ritchson) died during Operation Roast in 1945, Graham Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) was captured and executed, and Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer) disappeared over the Mediterranean in 1943. Of the British operatives depicted in the film, only Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González), March-Phillipps' wife, survived the war.
Ritchie's movie gives these larger-than-life figures the triumphant adventure history largely denied them, and Cavill gets something similar from this film. He may never get his Bond movie, but playing one of the men who inspired 007 might be the next best thing.