The 355

 

Score:  B

Directed by Simon Kinberg

Starring Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Penelope Cruz, Lupita Nyong'o, Sebastian Stan

Running time: 124 minutes

Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  The 355, featuring an all-female team of agents trying to stop a terrorist plot, hits both refreshing high, and disappointing low, notes.  The cast - with Chastain, Kruger, Nyong'o, and Cruz - has some of the best actors in Hollywood and they shine, particularly in the first part, to go with some great action.  But it falls apart in the second half, failing to realize the potential of the first.  Still, best to see this one in the theater - the good parts are worth it.

A team of Colombian commandos intervenes in what they believe is a high-level drug deal, but actually involves something unusual - and much more dangerous.  The agent who finds the object flees for his safety, but intelligence agencies all over the world pick up on this urgent incident.  The CIA sends a pair of agents, Mace (Chastain) and Nick (Stan) to retrieve the object, just as the German BND sends their best agent, Marie Schmidt (Kruger).  The flurry of competing parties leads to chaos, and the object goes missing again.  As more experts enter the mix, like tech guru Khadijah (Nyong'o), the chase intensifies - and the stakes grow, too.

The 355 is an entertaining action thriller built around an ensemble, but its shoddy second half lets down a very promising first half.  I was drawn to the all-female team premise here; no gimmick, the movie assembled a formidable group of some of today's best actors including one of my favorites, Jessica Chastain.  The entire film is pretty fast-paced, but the early parts still manage to do a good job introducing the characters who, thanks to both good writing and great performances, are distinct and interesting.  Chastain's character, Mace, has a somewhat familiar but unique (for Hollywood) relationship with her male partner, Nick; in just a few minutes, you get the sense of a complex, real woman.  Mace's friendship with Nyong'o's Khadijah is also neat, and she as well as Kruger's and Cruz's characters also get brief but fascinating back stories and personalities.  For the genre, the character work is light years ahead of its competitors, but it also does have plenty of gripping action.  There are several standout scenes in the first half - a chase through Paris featuring Mace and Marie; a shootout in a busy port; and a really well-shot, chaotic-yet-clear spy classic in a Moroccan market.  They are all both creative (even in an oversaturated genre) and realistic-seeming.  You also can practically feel the hard punches and wince at each gun shot.

Unfortunately, the film starts going downhill steadily around the midpoint.  There is a major "twist" - which, really, is pretty much to be expected in this kind of movie.  That there is a twist is not the problem, but the movie begins to focus more and more on the increasingly ludicrous plot at the expense of the characters, to my great chagrin.  The filmmakers seem to have thought the action in the first half wasn't big enough, so these grow, too, and move firmly from the somewhat plausible to generic blockbuster territory.  A final member of the team is added late, Fan Bingbing, in what is pretty clearly an attempt to draw as big a Chinese audience as possible.  Even this element could have been incorporated well - how to add an agent from a rival nation to what so far is "Team West" - but it just gets sucked in as part of the escalating plot and action, too.  Possibly my biggest disappointment is the way the film transforms Mace and Nick's relationship.  I'm not terribly surprised at what they do, but there were plenty of other, MUCH better choices.  The ending sets up for possible sequels, but considering The 355's critical and commercial reception, that seems unlikely to happen.  It's a shame; if the second half had just followed through on the promise of the first, I would gladly see more.

***

My first movie of 2022 (of films released in the calendar year, that is), I was hoping The 355 would follow in the footsteps of several other early-year movies I've seen that far surpassed their bewilderingly low reviews - Downhill, The Upside, etc.  I'm still glad that I went to the theater to see it, though, as there are parts better than anything most films can offer.  I'd prefer to see this kind of Jekyll and Hyde movie, in other words, than a consistently mediocre one.  What is it about this pattern - possibly the single most common one in Hollywood of at least the last ten years - that so many movies start very well, only to have a disappointing second half/ending?  Is it just me?  Or is Hollywood just good at starting ideas and not following through on them?  Here's one suggestion:  for the love of God, not every movie (especially action/adventure) has to just get bigger and bigger as it goes.  Well, at least this was an interesting start to the year in movies - I'm ready for more!

* By http://www.impawards.com/2021/three_five_five.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65503879