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Guy Ritchie’s new movie is one of the biggest action films on the 2024 movie schedule so far. Henry Cavil, Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding, and the rest of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare cast murder a whole lot of Nazis throughout the movie, which is based on the true story of a special forces team during World War II. However, it seems that not all of the violence was originally planned, as Alan Ritchson had to convince Ritchie to let one scene become even more violent.
In an interview with EW, Ritchson told the story about the scene, which takes place late in the film and sees his character, Anders Lassen, tear through a ship full of Nazis. The initial concept for the scene simply had Ritchson dispatch a couple of soldiers with the character’s trademark knives. However, the actor saw the scene very differently, namely as something far more physical and bloody. He felt it made sense for his character to not just want to kill Nazis, but to want to kill them violently. He explained…
I told Guy, ‘Look, man, if we’re going to do this action sequence tomorrow, I don’t think it could be something where we just throw a dagger and dispense a couple guys. ‘This guy hates Nazis, so this should be murder; this should be malice-filled. He came from Danish aristocracy, half his family sided with the Nazis and half his family did not sympathize, and so there was a civil war in his own family. They were killing cousins and brothers. That really left a scar on this family, so when he survived and fought back against this movement, it was very personal.’ So I was pitching this idea that this should feel incredibly personal when he goes to kill these Nazis. There’s real bloodlust there.
Alan Ritchson says that a lot of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, especially the action, was improv, and that the director had an attitude ‘of “the real movie is going to be the one we find on set.” However, he also said that Ritchie wasn’t immediately receptive to the idea of going with the more physical sequence. The actor continued…
Guy looked at me like I was nuts. And he was like, ‘I don’t know, man.’
Ritchson said that one of Ritchie’s producing partners was sympathetic to the actor’s idea and helped convince the director to at least let them take the shot. Ritchson and his frequent stunt double Ryan Tarran then spent the night designing the sequence. The next day, they presented it to the boss, who was apparently a tough audience…
Guy walked onto the set and he was like, ‘Where do I sit to see this?’ He was almost angry about it. He was like, ‘Show me.’
But the work paid off. Alan Ritchson said that Guy Ritchie ultimately loved what they’d come up with, which included Tarran himself appearing as a Nazi to fight Ritchson, as he was the only person on set big enough to look like a real threat to the actor. Ritchson concluded the story by saying…
And Guy loved it. He was like, ‘Great, love it, shoot it. Have fun.’ And he leaves. We then spent all day making what we had pitched, and it’s in the movie and it’s in the trailer. When you think of the action of this movie, that’s what you think of, that scene. It’s hyper-aggressive, but it’s action-filled with a different kind of purpose than a lot of the action movies we get. I don’t think there’s a greater motivation than what Anders Lassen was fighting for.
As our Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare review, states, the movie is fascist-fighting fun, to be sure. It’s certainly hard to imagine The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare without Alan Ritchson tearing through Nazis with an ax.; it’s one of the highlights of the film. Clearly Ritchie made the right choice here listening to his actor.