Spy

Dir: Paul Feig

2015

***

2015’s Spy is probably the only Paul Feig film I don’t hate because it is the only Paul Feig film that wasn’t hyped to hell. It features way too many in-jokes and people who believe they are funnier than they really are but to give it due credit, it is at times, more inventive than the spy films it attempts to parody. It might have ruined Jude Law’s chances of being the next James Bond but that ship had probably sailed anyway. I’m not the world’s biggest Melissa McCarthy fan but she’s best when she isn’t playing a confident character, her strengths are always when she’s vulnerable and here for the first time in her career she’s sort of both. She has used the balance since to great effect. It’s a madcap spy movie/James Bond send up and Feig clearly understands that the best such films are the ones that don’t stop to breathe. McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a 40-year-old, single, desk-bound CIA employee who remotely assists her partner, field agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law), while harbouring secret romantic feelings for him. We follow them both on a typical mission as Fine gets himself into a troublesome situation which Cooper inevitably gets him out of while the office around her falls to pieces after being infested with vermin (a shameless, and rather pointless nod to an episode of the Office which Feig directed). During their latest mission, Fine accidentally kills arms dealer Tihomir Boyanov as he sneezes during a confrontation before extracting the location of a nuke in a suitcase from him. Susan uncovers evidence that Rayna (Rose Byrne), Boyanov's daughter, has contacted Sergio De Luca (Bobby Cannavale), a suspected broker with ties to various terrorist groups, so Fine infiltrates her home. However, Rayna shoots Fine dead, while Susan watches helplessly online. She then reveals that she knows the identities of the agency's top agents, knowing that a remote agent would be watching. Susan, who is almost certainly unknown to Rayna, volunteers to track her (she was a top trainee agent, albeit over ten years ago). When her boss, Elaine Crocker (Allison Janney), reluctantly agrees, the ultra macho Rick Ford (Jason Statham) quits in disgust. With her best friend Nancy (Miranda Hart – in a role said to have been written especially for her) providing intelligence, Susan goes to Paris undercover. Ford continually shows up to tell Susan she will fail because of her inexperience. The next morning, Susan discovers that De Luca's office has burned down. She finds a photo of a man standing next to the fire and eventually finds him and follows him before seeing him switch his backpack with Ford’s, the switched bag containing a bomb. Susan warns Ford in time during a concert and then pursues the man into an abandoned building. During the ensuing fight, he falls to his death. When she checks the man's video camera, Susan learns that De Luca is going to Rome. In Rome, Susan meets her contact Aldo (an over the top Italian stereotype played by Peter Serafinowicz). She follows Sergio into a casino, where she ends up saving Rayna's life. Rayna brings Susan into her inner circle and takes Susan on her private plane to Budapest. In mid-flight, the steward kills Rayna's bodyguard and pilots, but Susan subdues him. Rayna believes Susan to be a CIA agent, but Susan convinces her that she was hired by her father to protect her. In Budapest, Susan meets Nancy, who was sent by Crocker. After being shot at, Susan pursues and catches up with the would-be assassin who turns out to be CIA spy Karen (Morena Baccarin), who sold Rayna the names of the other agents. She tries to shoot Susan, but an unknown sniper kills her instead. Susan, Nancy and Aldo accompany Rayna to a party to meet Rayna's contact. That turns out to be Lia, the woman who distracted Ford in Paris. Nancy creates a diversion (by pretending to be a crazed fan of guest performer 50 Cent) so that Susan can try to apprehend Lia unnoticed. Because of Ford's inopportune intervention, however, Lia runs off. Susan chases after her. After a brutal fight, as Susan is about to arrest Lia, she is instead killed by Fine, who earlier faked his death and is now Rayna's lover and associate. Rayna imprisons Susan and Aldo in a bunker. Later, Fine reveals to Susan that he is trying to gain Rayna's trust to locate the nuke, and he was the one who killed Karen. Susan and Aldo escape. At De Luca's mansion, Fine, Rayna and Sergio wait for Solsa Dudaev, head of an al-Qaeda-funded terrorist group. Susan convinces Rayna and De Luca that, even though she works for the CIA, she will do anything to protect Fine, admitting that she loves him. Dudaev gives De Luca a suitcase full of diamonds, and Rayna produces the device. De Luca has Dudaev and his men killed, then reveals his plan to sell the device to another buyer (though they also intend to bomb New York City), before pointing his gun at Rayna. Ford distracts him, allowing Susan to kill his men. Sergio escapes to his helicopter with the device and the diamonds, but Susan grabs onto the landing gear. In the ensuing struggle, Susan throws the diamonds and the device into a lake below. De Luca attempts to shoot Susan, but Nancy, following in another helicopter provided by 50 Cent, shoots him in the back before he can. He grabs on to Susan's necklace (a gift from Fine), but she releases the catch and De Luca falls out of the helicopter to the lake, presumably dead. The nuke is retrieved by the CIA, and Rayna is arrested, but she makes peace with Susan - accepting her as a friend. Ford, realising that he had underestimated Susan's skills, compliments her on her job. Crocker tells Susan that she will remain a field agent, and that her next assignment will take her to Prague to infiltrate a drug smuggling ring. Fine invites Susan to dinner, but she instead opts for a night out with Nancy. The next morning, Susan wakes up in bed next to Ford and screams, while Ford claims she "loved it". During the credits, it is revealed that Rayna is imprisoned; De Luca is lost after falling to the lake; and Susan is tasked with different missions (including one where Ford is captured by mafia). The credits sequence suggests that Feig hoped there would be a sequel but I believe the chances of that were always thin. The remote assistance aspect of the film is very clever and I wonder whether they should have stuck to a film that concentrates on only using that dynamic. I even think a sit-com, ala The American Office, could suit the format well. I knew Jude Law was going to be still alive because he was both the most expensive actor cast and was the best character of the film. That said, I was happy to see Miranda Hart in a big budget Hollywood movie as I was Peter Serafinowicz but it was Rose Byrne’s transformation into villain that impressed me the most. Its not perfect though, far from it. I hate films that feature concerts for no good reason and why they featured a Verka Serduchka concert is anyone’s guess. I don’t care for pointless cameos either, although seeing 50 Cent and Miranda Hart together shooting a machine gun out of a helicopter isn’t something I thought I’d ever see in a film. So while I’m relieved and surprised that a Paul Feig film didn’t bore me to death, it is still a below-par Spy spoof. Michel Hazanavicius and Jean Dujardin’s OSS-117 films are still yet to be bettered in this respect and I’d even watch Naked Gun ​33 1⁄3: The Final Insult over this any day of the week.