Spy nails the comedy action genre and is a great example of how to jigsaw together a cross-genre film. It revels in the well-known tropes of action movies. Heroes hit their targets with every shot whilst surviving hails of machine fun fire. In sticky situations when all looks lost a friendly bullet appears out of nowhere, just in the nick of time.
Melissa McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a back room CIA agent, partnering an agent in the field. When this suave spy played by Jude Law disappears on a mission she is sent abroad to find out what has happened and finish the job. Hence an unlikely, inexperienced spy is traipsing through Paris, Rome and Budapest, infiltrating the world of a deadly arms dealer and trying to prevent global disaster.
The script by director Paul Feig has several genuine laugh out loud moments, but the credit for the film’s success lies mostly with the cast. Miranda Hart is in there as a CIA operative, a sidekick of the sidekick, channeling a more stable version of her sitcom character. Jason Statham has only a small part but shows an adroit comic touch. His character’s self-belief is hilarious.
The plot is the standard terrorist tries to sell a big weapon to another terrorist whilst the authorities try to stop them. The baddies are Eastern European and who they represent, why they’re doing it and who they’re trying to destroy is all irrelevant.
The baddies must be stopped and we can all buy into that. Spy is not trying to break new ground but it is trying to entertain and that it does that very well.
Stay to the end and get an outtake free.
Fun
Leave a Reply