Minnesota United at Charlotte FC

When: 5 p.m. CT Sunday
Where: Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte
Stream: Apple TV Season Pass
Radio: KSTP-AM 1500 ESPN
Weather: 58 degrees, cloudy, 6 mph southwest wind
Betting line: MNUFC plus-260; draw plus-255; Charlotte minus-105

Series history: This is the first regular-season meeting between the two clubs; Charlotte joined the Eastern Conference as an MLS expansion franchise in 2022. They played to a scoreless draw in a preseason friendly in February.

Form: MNUFC (3-2-2, 11 points) has garnered one point across its last three games. After averaging two goals per game across its first four contests, the Loons are putting up a paltry 0.67 goals over their last three. Charlotte (3-3-2, 11 points) netted a season-high three goals in a 3-2 win over Toronto FC last Saturday.

Storyline: The Loons have fallen into first-half funks in the previous two matches, but have busted out of them after halftime. Head coach Eric Ramsay has to find a way for his squad to start fresher and faster and not leave themselves with another mountain to climb.

Context: Under Ramsay at halftime, players will speak among themselves in the dressing room as the coaching staff separately review the tactics and consult analytics. Then Ramsay will speak to the group and individual coaches will instruct certain players.

Quote: “That is always the approach from my perspective — that you gave a window whereby you can really help the players, if you are constructive enough, if you feel like you’ve picked up on key details that need to be passed on, you have a very limited window to do that,” Ramsay said Tuesday. “… That has stood us in good stead.”

Absences: Emanuel Reynoso (unexcused absence) has remained in Argentina for one month after missing his U.S. green card appointment. Sang Bin Jeong (international duty) is with South Korean Under-23 team for Olympic qualifying. Micky Tapias (hamstring) and Hugo Bacharach (unknown injury) did not train to start the week and are likely out.

Idea: Bongi Hlongwane moved from the right wing to the left this season. While he logged two goals in his first two appearances, he hasn’t even taken a shot in two of his last three matches. He could benefit from a switch back to the side where he had so much success (17 goals in all competitions) a season ago. Franco Fragapane, who scored his first goal this season, could come into the starting XI on the left.

Projected (wishful) starting XI: In a 4-3-3 formation, LW Franco Fragapane, CF Teemu Pukki, RW Bongi Hlongwane; CM Robin Lod, CM Hassani Dotson, CM Wil Trapp; LB Joseph Rosales, CB Devin Padelford, CB Michael Boxall, RB DJ Taylor; GK Dayne St. Clair.

Scouting report: Eight different players have scored Charlotte’s nine goals this season. Patrick Agyemang leads with two, while lone Designated Player Enzo Copetti has not opened his 2024 scoring account.

Prediction: Charlotte has some quality home results — including a win over Columbus and a draw with Cincinnati — but they don’t strike much fear in foes. MNUFC can go on the road and get a point. 2-2 draw.

Guy Ritchie’s latest, the cumbersomely titled “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is at once his “Inglourious Basterds” and also his “Dunkirk.” With his adaptation of the nonfiction book “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: How Churchill’s Secret Warriors Set Europe Ablaze and Gave Birth to Modern Black Ops” by historian and war reporter Damien Lewis, Ritchie borrows Quentin Tarantino’s winking post-modern retro style to pay homage to real-life British war heroes with the same reverence that Christopher Nolan paid to the heroes of Dunkirk.

The prolific English filmmaker started out with cheeky crime comedies (“Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” “Snatch”), and has dabbled in historical bombast (“King Arthur,” “Sherlock”), Disney remakes (“Aladdin”), contemporary dramas (“Wrath of Man,” “The Covenant”) and to diminishing returns, more recent crime comedies (“The Gentleman,” “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre”). But he finds a nice groove with this entertaining World War II not-quite-comedy. There’s a glee in the Nazi killing, and an exceptionally dry humor that is English through-and-through, but he strikes a tone that rides the line between self-serious and self-consciously humorous.

If Tarantino uses a stylistic pastiche of 1960s and ’70s exploitation films and spaghetti Westerns in order to rewrite history to his own liking, Ritchie borrows Tarantino’s approach to perform a kind of pulpy myth-making and celebrate a group of under-sung real-life war heroes (who may have potentially inspired Ian Fleming’s James Bond). The score by Christopher Benstead is all Ennio Morricone-style whistles and guitars.

Though it is not named as such in the film, which is heavily imagined and fictionalized with the addition of a few new characters, the script, which is by Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Arash Amel and Ritchie, essentially follows the 1942 secret special operations mission known as “Operation Postmaster.” Concerned about the interference of German U-boats, which had throttled the English ability to receive supplies, and military support from the United States, Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear in the stiffest makeup job seen in some time), gives the go-ahead for Brigadier Gubbins “M” to hire the right man to target an Italian freighter loaded with U-boat supplies. Cripple the U-boats, open the channel.

The right man for the job is the incarcerated Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) and he assembles his team of expert rapscallions, including Danish warrior Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson), explosives expert Freddy Alvarez (Henry Golding) and Irish sailor Henry Hayes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin). On the way to the Spanish island of Fernando Po, off the coast of equatorial Africa, they’ll have to make a stop to pick up Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer), imprisoned as a POW in a Nazi outpost on La Palma, in the Canary Islands.

Their liaisons on the ground in Fernando Po are the British secret agents Heron (Babs Olusanmokun and Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González) a half-Jewish actress and singer trained in the spycraft of seduction, whose target is a sadistic, high-powered Nazi named Luhr (Til Schweiger). They also have an ally in the Eton-educated “Prince of Fernando Po” Kambili Kalu (Danny Sapani) and his private militia.

While Ritchie structures the film around tense conversations and bursts of violence, “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is a bit languidly paced in between, and isn’t that suspenseful. In an opening sequence, we see our ad-hoc special forces team dispatch a group of German sailors with a bit of amateurish theater and a dose of their signature firepower. No one breaks a sweat, no one raises their voices, they never run out of ammo, and even in extreme situations there’s time for droll Britishisms, smarmy jokes and homoerotic ribbing.

Ritchie positions these heroes as highly capable and utterly untouchable warriors, mowing down Nazis without ruffling their mustache hairs (hot tip: don’t Google these guys if you want to keep the good times rolling). It’s all a part of the fantasy he spins through style and reference. This isn’t an authentic representation of World War II, it’s an imagining of what this story would be like told in a ‘70s exploitation flick. It’s the kind of movie that would star Rick Dalton, the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood.” González isn’t miscast as English spy Marjorie Stewart because she’s playing the kind of actress who would play Stewart opposite Dalton.

Even if the heavy stylization leaves the film feeling a bit arch, there’s a real affection that comes through in Ritchie’s homage to these early special forces soldiers, making them larger than life cinema heroes and letting the audience in on the fun. You’re only left wanting more time with this team. Who knows, maybe Ritchie will rewrite history to his liking if there’s another installment of ungentlemanly warfare.

‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’

(In English, German, and Spanish, with English subtitles)

3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong violence throughout and some language)

Running time: 2:00

How to watch: In theaters Friday

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The filmmaking team known as Radio Silence, made up of directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and producer Chad Villella, struck black (comedy) gold with their 2019 horror thriller “Ready or Not,” about a young bride, played by Samara Weaving, who has to battle her way out of a murderous game hosted by her wealthy soon-to-be in-laws. The film demonstrated their mastery of coupling an irreverent tone with splashy violence, and netted the team the responsibility of making the next two “Scream” movies, the first without Wes Craven behind the camera.

With their latest feature “Abigail,” Universal gets into the Radio Silence business, hoping that their brand of female-driven horror can pay big dividends at the box office (and birth a franchise?). With a script by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, who co-wrote “Ready or Not,” Radio Silence have delivered what is essentially a spiritual sequel to their breakout hit, this time with vampires rather than superstitious old-money sadists, and starring “Scream” queen Melissa Barrera.

Once again, the setting is an old creepy mansion filled with taxidermy and firelight. Once again our heroine is a steely, scrappy young woman who has a single vice — Weaving’s Grace had a penchant for cigarettes; Barrera’s Joey gobbles hard candy. Once again, a group has been assembled in this isolated location and given a task to be completed within a set amount of time.

In “Abigail,” the group is a band of sarcastic kidnappers, a team of strangers who have been hired to snatch and then guard Abigail (Alisha Weir), the 12-year-old daughter of a rich and powerful man. Their boss, Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) gives them nicknames for anonymity — “Joey,” “Frank” (Dan Stevens), “Sammy” (Kathryn Newton), “Dean” (Angus Cloud), “Peter” (Kevin Durand) and “Don Rickles” (Will Catlett) — then bids goodbye to his “pack of rats.” They assume they’ll drink the night away with their hostage in the other room and collect their fee, but innocent Abigail is much, much more than meets the eye. She mournfully informs her keeper Joey that she’s sorry for what’s about to happen to them.

If you’ve seen the trailers, you already know that tiny ballerina Abigail is a ferociously terrifying vampire who starts to hunt and feast on each kidnapper. “I like to play with my food,” she taunts, baring rows of sharpened, yellowed teeth. Weir, who starred in “Matilda: The Musical,” cheerfully chomps into this role, which requires a tremendous physicality, blending ballet and brutal brawls, and she’s riveting, but also quite funny. There’s a grand tradition of terrible little girls in horror, from “The Bad Seed” to “The Exorcist,” and we can easily add “Abigail” to that canon.

The rest of the ensemble also capably pirouettes from jokes to terror, led by Stevens, sporting aviators and a Queens accent as the shifty, untrustworthy Frank. Newton has appeared in her fair share of horror flicks, always flirting with the monstrous side. Durand leans into his French Canadian roots playing a Quebecois muscle man who’s more brawn than brains. But Barrera holds the center as the savvy Joey whose rare vulnerability is her sympathy for kids.

There’s a parent-child theme that doesn’t so much as simmer below the surface as it drives the plot along, both Abigail and Joey finding something in each other that they lack. There’s not much subtext, everything remains on the surface, and the exceptionally wordy script relies on exposition dumps to inform the audience about rumors, twists, deals and double-crosses. The characters chatter and prattle about vampire lore and Anne Rice, “True Blood,” “Twilight” and “Nosferatu.”

Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett have a gleefully maximalist horror style; blood is dark and sticky, it doesn’t just spurt, it geysers, projects and splatters. Bodies burst like water balloons under pressure, goopy viscera raining from wall to wall. It’s uniquely them, but they pay homage to the greats: Kathryn Bigelow’s “Near Dark,” the leaping vampires of “Blade” and an oblique script reference to the 1936 film “Dracula’s Daughter,” which offers a layered double meaning to the film.

“Abigail” is at times a bit too flippant, over the top and even protracted in its ridiculous Grand Guignol of exploding “meat sacks,” but it’s very much in line with the unique Radio Silence sensibility, which is en vogue with audiences right now.

The highlight of these films, from “Ready or Not” to “Scream” to “Abigail,” is their ability to tap into an emotional zeitgeist via their working class heroines, who capture the mood of the moment. Like Grace, and Barrera’s character Sam in “Scream,” Joey is weary and hardened by the world, but determined to survive, to make it through the day. Bloodied and battered, she manages to find a shred of solace in this godforsaken world, and that makes her the kind of final girl we can believe in.

‘Abigail’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, pervasive language and brief drug use)

Running time: 1:49

How to watch: In theaters Friday

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