‘Operation Mincemeat’ Review: Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen Team Up to Outwit the Nazis in a Standard-Issue War Drama
variety.comGuy Lodge Film CriticOperation Mincemeat was an aptly absurd code name for what was, on the face of it, a preposterous British military mission: In 1943, with Allied forces planning to invade Sicily and wrest it from fascist Axis control, two intelligence officers conspired to convince the Nazis they were targeting Greece instead, pulling off the ruse with false documents and the stolen, dressed-up corpse of a fictitious British marine.
It’s a true chapter of history that nonetheless sounds like a war film as dreamed up by Ealing Studios scriptwriters; it’s practically begging to be made into a farce, and sure enough, the gag-filled knockabout musical “Operation Mincemeat” hits London stages this very month.
As coincidence would have it, the screen version of the same story arrives in U.K. cinemas near-simultaneously, though any similarities end there: stately and stiff-lipped, John Madden’s handsome film approaches its tall tale with a very British sense of decorum.
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