The King’s Man (2021)

Plot of The King’s Man: This film presents to origins of the King’s Man secret service. Orlando, the Duke of Oxford with his wife and young son are visiting a concentration camp in South Africa during the Boer War when the wife is shot and killed by a Boer sniper. Before dying she makes her husband swear that he will never expose their son, Conrad, to danger. Years later the Duke has formed a spy network using domestics, controlled by his employee Polly. At Lord Kitchener’s request the duke and Conrad ride with the Archduke Franz Ferdinand but are unable to prevent the assassination. WWI starts, and even though Conrad joins up, Kitchener prevents him from being involved in combat. Meanwhile at an isolate location in central Europe a group of dissidents, including Rasputin meet to destabilise the world, and as a result Rasputin managed to persuade the Czar to pull out of the war. In order to set things right Orlando and Conrad and their servant Shola, go to Russia, and with difficulty kill Rasputin. Later Conrad changes places with a corporal and is sent to the trenches, but recognised and an impostor is killed by a fellow squaddie. Orlando is devastated, and it is only when the world may succumb to chaos that Polly persuades him to take action to sort things out.

Content: No sex or nudity although Rasputin talks about it and we see a back view in a film of Mata Hari seducing the American president, an event which has an effect on the war. Kitchener and Orlando are often in conference in the Kingsman tailor’s shop on Saville Row, which would afterwards become headquarters of the group. The concentation camp in South Africa briefly features. Conrad joins a secret mission in No Man’s Land to recover a spy, and engages in hand to hand combat with Germans. The spy, who dies in the end, hands Conrad a secret communication which says that Germany had tried to involve Mexico in the war. The villanous group meet in a secret location on a mountain top. Orlando and his support must in the end get there and sort things out.

A View: I have seen the other Kingsman films and some other Matthew Vaughn outings, starting with Kick-ass which I thought was terrific. This film was apparenty not a success, probably due to its very high production costs, and in part due to the COVID outbreak which reduced the popularity of cinema. Some of it is really impressive, particularly the actual scenes of warfare. But the actual plot is a bit weak, if we can somehow dissociate fiction events from the real ones, leading to disappointing outcomes. The stuff involving Rasputin is great, but possibly the attempts at presenting reality made the film more expensive than it was worth. So, should you want to watch this, consider seeing the first Kingsman outing first.

Fun Fact: Apparently Matthew Vaughn was inspired to write this film after seeing The Man Who Would Be King, one of my Must See films.