Operation Mincemeat Review

Winston Churchill famously said “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” This bodyguard of lies was used in the elaborate espionage mission Operation Mincemeat where British Intelligence attempted to get the Germans to divert resources from the defence of Sicily.

The year is 1943. The Allies prepare to invade Sicily, the soft underbelly of Europe. However, the Axis powers are aware of the Allies’ plans. British Intelligence launches an operation to convince the Germans the Allies are going to strike Greece instead of Italy.

Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu (Colin Firth) and Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondeley (Matthew Macfadyen) propose a daring scheme – send a dead body posing as a British officer to Spain with fake documents. The aim is for the fascist Spanish government to give the Germans fake documents about the Allies’ plans. However, both men must deal with the operational risk and scepticism from their superiors.

Operation Mincemeat covered two fields of interest for me: espionage and World War II. It was a film that I was interested in immediately and I was satisfied for the most part.

Operation Mincemeat came across like a British version of Argo. Both films were about seemingly outlandish spy operations and all the logistics that were required. They had a similar structure because the first half was about the preparation, and the second was about the mission itself. Both films even had a sense of humour in them: Operation Mincemeat had more of a dry, British style of wit.

Spy nerds will love the first half of Operation Mincemeat because it was about the details the spies had to create for the legend for the dead agent. They couldn’t just dump a body with some documents, they needed to give the man a back story. The ‘wallet litter’ was important so the Germans would believe Major William Martin was real. The spy team ended up getting attached to Martin because of the life they created for him. Martin gave him a love life, debts, and a military backstory and they even projected themselves on him.

A lot of Operation Mincemeat focused on the handlers having to face obsoletes to their mission. One of the early scenes in the film (which was also in the trailer) was when Cholmondeley primitively poked holes in the plan. In London they had to find a suitable body, a double for Martin’s photo ID, and try to write a fake letter from a general. When the operation was given the go-ahead there were things beyond their control. They had to rely on the Spanish playing their part and the British officers had to think on their feet.

Operation Mincemeat does lose steam towards the end. It required fictional drama where the character must consider if the Germans know the information was fake and risks the invasion.

Fictionalisation was Operation Mincemeat’s weakness. The filmmakers added drama by having a love triangle subplot. Cholmondeley was in love with Jean Leslie (Kelly Macdonald), a woman he recruited to be a part of the team. However, Jean gets close with Montagu and Cholmondeley grows jealous. It affects their working relationship and John Godfrey (Jason Isaac), the head of Naval Intelligence tries to use the rift between the pair. It came off as needless since the drama and tension should come from the day job. If they fail lives could be lost and the Nazis would have an advantage.

The attachment of a personal story made Operation Mincemeat seem like it was trying to copy The Imitation Game. The Imitation Game was a biopic about Alan Turing. The keyword is ‘biopic’ because it was a film about Turing’s work and being gay at a time when homosexuality was illegal. Operation Mincemeat was trying to juggle a complicated operation with an additional romantic story. It was a case of conflict being added for the sake of conflict.

John Madden directed the film. He’s a well-regarded director known for making films like Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love. He provided a level of prestige for Operation Mincemeat because it was a film set in Whitehall, men were wearing immaculate military uniforms and focused on the dealings of British bureaucracy and stubbornness. There was also a bit of humour in the film. Macfadyen does have some of the funniest lines in the film and he offers a bit of levity.

Ian Fleming (Johnny Flynn) had a supporting role in the film. He was Godfrey’s assistant and an advocate for Operation Mincemeat. Early in the film spy fiction was referenced, in the form of literature the film’s characters were reading, to many of the characters saying they were writing spy stories. Fleming was famous for creating James Bond, so the film made reference to the franchise, leading to reactions of ‘how cute’ to eye-rolling.

Madden and his editor did provide a lot of montages and played crosscutting. Whenever there was a major step in the mission these techniques were used. They were present when the characters were trying to find a body, trying to photograph the body, and when the body was found in Spain. You can play a drinking game when watching the film because of the montages.

Operation Mincemeat does scratch an itch for people looking for a historical drama and a spy story.  But the fictional elements brought in to make the film more dramatic ironically took away from the drama.