OPERATION FORTUNE: Ruse de Guerre, the 5th teamup of mateship for director Guy Ritchie and leading bum-kicker Jason Statham, a 2023 action comedy that piqued critics and with a $50,000,000 price tag laid an ostrich egg at the ticket booths: 110th in the States, the global total a scrambled $49,000,000. It manages to be effortlessly watchable and immediately disposable, a great-looking confection of proven talent utilized in slipshod fashion. One of those “must’ve been fun to make” situations.

The British government tasks ‘Nathan Jasmine’ (Cary Elwes) with retrieving “The Handle”, an AI device that can out-think any extant security system. Ukrainian gangsters stole it, mega-rich arms dealer ‘Greg Simmonds’ (Hugh Grant) wants to sell it, and a host of wealthy cruds (bio-tech moguls) and a rogue agent are in on the scamper. Jasmine’s team is headed by top dog spy  ‘Orson Fortune’ (Statham, 56), licensed to do whatever he feels like; ‘Sarah Fidel’ (Aubrey Plaza), a superwhiz hacker with a quip-ready attitude; action hero movie star ‘Danny Franscesco’ (Josh Hartnett), dragooned into service; and ‘J.J. Davies’ (Bugzy Malone), who is there for backup muscle, driving skills and because you can’t mount a modern action flick without a sullen rapper whose criminal background and ‘keeping it real’ (and insanely lucrative) can hopefully draw the young and clueless into a megaplex.

Ritchie directed, co-produced and with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies co-wrote the script. Except that Ritchie’s way of working & writing was to whip up stuff on the fly and let the actors fend with it. Sometimes this fly-by-pants cheek bangs a run to third base, but there are a lot of bunts, walks and outs to absorb as well. Statham delivers the bone-crunches, Grant the fun line-readings, but way too many of the bits that are set up for jokes don’t work—how do you not get laughs from Aubrey Plaza? It’s not her fault—and she looks fabulous, but script, direction and editing are half-baked.

Sweet locations in Turkey and Qatar, a good score from Christopher Benstead. With Eddie Marsan, Peter Ferdinando, Lourdes Faberes, Max Beesley and Eugenia Kuzmina. 114 minutes.