While the actual quality might never threaten to float him above a three-star rating, I’ve grown an odd, outsized fondness for Guy Ritchie’s recent run of solidly enjoyable lower-tier action films. Whether deadly serious (Wrath of Man), entirely unserious (Operation Fortune) or somewhere between the two (The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare), there’s been a real snap to them, one that’s usually missing from other recent films of that ilk. Ritchie is more deeply invested in the thought-through craft of making a B-movie than many of his peers and there’s a smooth sensuousness to how he moves, each of them looking, feeling and sounding like films he genuinely cares about.

If only audiences, and the companies releasing them, felt the same. While Wrath of Man, a more marketable Jason Statham revenge thriller yet containing more grit than one would expect, managed to make enough money overseas, he’s otherwise struggled to justify his unusually high budgets. Operation Fortune was renamed, resold and pushed around the schedule before misfiring at the box office (it went straight-to-streaming in many countries) while The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare couldn’t even make half of its budget back after another botched release. The trend may well continue with his latest In the Grey, another slick action thriller that was made back in 2023, bought and then sold by Lionsgate before being similarly redated three times, the film now heading for an underwhelming opening weekend (In the Red would be perhaps more appropriate). What’s strangest here is that even critics were kept away this time with no press screenings (I paid for a ticket), suggesting that even those reliable three stars might be out of reach for this one.

But, against all considerable odds, In the Grey might well be Ritchie’s most purely entertaining film for years. Sure, it’s messy in moments (one can feel the long nights in the editing suite especially near the end) and nonsensically plotted at others, but it’s also an incredibly, consistently fun time. Ritchie allows both his cast and audience to let loose without allowing himself to lose his grip on the steering wheel, a safe pair of hands at a time when action has been dominated by those who don’t seem to know what they’re doing. He also avoids too much of the smug, “well that just happened” humour that’s corrupted so many other films of this cursed era and I was surprised by how seriously much of it is taken, not quite Wrath of Man serious, but enough to show what’s at stake and why we should care, life-or-death set pieces mercifully devoid of glib quips. His distributor might once again not be all that invested, but Ritchie definitely is.

It’s his first sole writing credit since 2019’s The Gentleman and hinges on a nifty, unusual premise. Rachel (Eiza González, reteaming with Ritchie after Ministry) is a lawyer tasked with trying to retrieve unpaid debts from dangerous figures, working on behalf of similarly shadowy financial firms. Her latest target Salazar (Carlos Bardem) owes $1bn and he’s already dispatched the last lawyer who tried to get it back for sharp-edged exec Bobby (Rosamund Pike, devouring her few scenes). She brings in her boys, Sid and Bronco (Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal), who offer both brawn and brain to concoct a plan to keep her safe after she makes a deal in person. It’s the escape that they’re worried about, and with a team of other perfectly styled, fresh off a fashion shoot heavies, they go about drawing up various ways off the island Salazar runs. At the same time, Rachel must use her legal prowess to force him into making a deal.

Ritchie might get a bit too busy with his exposition-heavy scene-setting – plans and locations and cocktail recipes all intermingling with an overdose of on-screen text – yet I can’t say I minded the pointless yet gorgeously captured sight of watching González make a beautifully prepared stovetop negroni svegliato (!). There’s such clear joy to what Ritchie is doing – going all out for something as disposable as this – that it’s hard not to feel it too.

His film is a tightly edited game with each moving part as thrilling as the other, whether it’s González sparring with Pike (the pair trained well in 2020’s nasty comedy I Care a Lot) or Gyllenhaal and Cavill enjoying the homoerotic motions of their boys-with-their-toys preparation. Ritchie’s films have long toyed with queerness and here, the sexual chemistry and undefined dynamic between the two men isn’t played for mean-spirited gay panic humour, they are for all intents and purposes playing a gay couple (the word husband is used and for every quip about lube or prison sex, there’s also a relatively earnest display of emotion). They also refer to their female ringleader as “mum”, a spunky González who has far more heat to her scenes with Pike.

Ritchie, as one has to come to expect, is an expert chaos-constructer and the action, along with another booming, seat-vibrating score from Christopher Benstead, is all seriously exciting to watch. Suspension of disbelief is of course required with our leads emerging as unscathed as superheroes, while also remaining as perfectly styled as models, but I was far too wrapped up to care.

The ending is at first satisfying and then a little abrupt, roughly yanking us out of what had been a smooth summer sojourn, the dust the film had been gathering on the shelf suddenly getting in our eyes. But that brief bitter endnote isn’t enough to take the shine off what will probably be one of the season’s more pleasurable pieces of pulp. I fear for the day Ritchie will stop getting funding for his zippy and sleek yet commercially mishandled and criminally underseen larks but for now, with two more in the can, I’ll happily live in a time when the cheques are still being written.

• In the Grey is out now in US and Australian cinemas with a UK date to be announced