The Spy Who Dumped Me

Score:  C-

Directed by Susanna Fogel
Starring Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux
Running time: 117 minutes
Rated R

Long Story Short:  Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon star in the latest action comedy spy satire, as the "girlfriends" get to take the driver's seat in the action this time.  The premise and leads are promising, but it's wasted from the very start by a bad script and poor directing; it isn't as funny as it should be, and the action is both too violent and boring.  Not even McKinnon mania is enough to make this worth a theater viewing; go to Mission Impossible instead (even a second viewing would be better!).


Audrey (Kunis) has the birthday blues; she's just been dumped by her boyfriend, Drew (Theroux), and though best friend Morgan (McKinnon) tries to cheer her up, she now has just her boring cashier job to look forward to.  That is, until a customer takes Audrey aside and tells her that Drew is in fact a secret agent on the run, and sure enough, Drew shows up in her apartment to tell her they are both in danger.  Audrey and Morgan flee together in the ensuing chaos as bad guys close in, and head off to Europe according to Drew's final instructions.  Drew clearly had something valuable - to save themselves, the friends must figure out what it is, who wants it, and who can help.  But in the spy game, who's on whose side is a difficult, and perhaps impossible, puzzle to solve.

The Spy Who Dumped Me has some talented actors in the cast, some of whom fare better than others, but they are all dragged down by a terrible script.  Mila Kunis is the 1A lead in the film, the woman "dumped" by the spy.  Like her character, Kunis is in unfamiliar territory here, but she does an OK to solid job serving as the film's anchor.  She's pretty convincing in action scenes and even better in her comic timing; she's also the focus of the romantic subplots, which are thankfully minimal.  Kunis clearly has the chops for this kind of role, but her character is simply limited by the script.  Kate McKinnon is once again the goofy sidekick, similar to Ghostbusters.  It's the obvious part for an SNL star who excels at such a variety of exaggerated, sketch-level characters.  She provides what little passion and energy this film can muster, but she's never more than a collection of quirks, a weird but loyal best friend.  The men, on the other hand - who are fortunately only in supporting roles - are pretty dreadful.  Justin Theroux and Sam Heughan play boring, generic spy-types; other than occasional efforts to be 007-suave, they are most distinguished by moments of sheer brutality.  They're both just window dressing that happen to spew out dialogue too frequently.  There are some cameos from impressive comedic actors, too, but none get anything worth writing about.

The Spy Who Dumped Me completely wastes a promising premise and two very talented leads, thanks to a horrific script, poor directing, and an inconsistent cast.  I very much enjoy both the spy genre and good send-ups of it, like Melissa McCarthy's spy, so this unique take, with great acting talent behind it, appealed to me.  The overall structure of the plot is extremely familiar and predictable - the girls' shock of learning the boyfriend's secret, dangerous world; the flight to and peril within various foreign locales; and finally the plan to turn the tables on the bad guys.  I doubt any thought went into this at all; and the film could have survived it, had each of the sections been well-crafted, and good roles and interactions given to the performers.  It fails on both those counts, as well.  The tone whipsaws back and forth between funky buddy comedy, relying on lots of improvisation, and pretty hardcore action sequences with ugly violence.  Rather than letting one of those elements take the lead and inform the tone of the other, the comedy and action constantly clash with each other.  This also makes the film unpleasantly unpredictable, in small ways - overall, the next part is always predictable but you never know if it will be told through the goofy or the brutal lens.  McKinnon throws a whole lot at the wall to see what will stick, and her success rate is pretty low by her standards, but at least she brings good, consistent energy and some much needed chuckles here and there.  There is nothing to redeem the spy/action elements, on the other hand.  There is confusion and chaos simply for its own sake (except in small, cliched moments like decrypting stolen files), and it's difficult to care what's going on so that by the end, you wish the double-crossing agents would just shoot each other and be done with it.

***

Among the summer films I've seen this year, The Spy Who Dumped Me is certainly the worst, and probably the most disappointing, too.  More than the experience of sitting through a poor film, I'm upset by the potential of the elements wasted here, the premise and the actors.  As long as 007 and his  kin are around, there will surely be more films to poke fun at the idea, and hopefully this particular angle will be better explored later.  Meanwhile, Hollywood still owes McKinnon a good lead role to showcase her talents; SNL stars get typecast in the silly, sketch-type roles, but McKinnon has the ability to take a more standard role and bring it alive in ways that few others could.  I'm not sure what's next for me at the theaters, now that summer is winding down, but hopefully it will be a pleasant surprise.  For this one, I recommend you avoid it, unless you're a huge McKinnon fan (and even then, just wait for Netflix).




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