FILM REVIEW: SPY

Agent Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) and Lia (Nargis Fakhri) in Spy.

 

Feig it, this is Melicious fun

By John Esther

In her best film yet as a lead, Melissa McCarthy is Agent Susan Cooper, a computer whiz who gives super support to the best of undercover agents, Bradley Fine (Jude Law), from behind her desk. Susan not only gives the super spy support, she romantically pines for him as well. Bradley loves Susan, too, but in a strictly professional and platonic way. Poor Susan.

However, as fate would have it, Bradley fails in his next mission and it is up to Susan to save the day. On the surface, Susan is not the obvious choice for the mission, but that is what makes her the best choice. Nobody in the criminal world will recognize her.

Starting off her European sojourn, Susan is sent to France, in an attempt to track down the mastermind criminal, Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne), a vicious killer with a nuclear bomb who is not beyond putting down people permanently or with a direct insult to her or his face -- mostly Susan's face (and fashion sense).

Meanwhile, a macho CIA agent gone rogue, Rick Ford (Jason Stratham) threatens the mission. Thus, not only does Susan have to remain incognito, and monitor Rayna's movements, she constantly has to use her smarts and more to save Rick and the mission from becoming a full-blown catastrophe.

(As per U.S. narrative course, Spy takes a flippant attitude toward American surveillance and activities on foreign soil.)

Written and directed by Paul Feig -- who previously collaborated with McCarthy on Bridesmaids and The Heat -- Spy is loaded with various sorts of humor, from the absurd, to the grotesque to some underhanded satire on spy films. The jokes come frequently and often simultaneously, overlapping one another verbally and visually. Unlike most movies, Spy is not below a second viewing (preferably in one's home where "supplies" are handy).

More importantly, Spy possesses a feminist narrative and response throughout the nearly two-hour running time. Susan or Rayna are essentially the leaders for their respective sides. They must intellectually, often physically, compensate for the incompetence of their male counterparts and they need no man to rescue them in the end. Relief. The chauvinism and sexism exhibited by the men in the film is dealt with by way of humor, reprimand or violence.

Speaking of violence, Spy is quite a violent film. Yet the violence, for the most part, is treated more as slapstick or cartoonish than particularly patriarchally insensitive. Several men with machine guns are unable to hit a single target. Susan's first kill is at once squeamish, hilarious and hyperbolic. And the kitchen fight scene with knives and boiling water between Susan and Lia (Nargis Fakhri) is absurdly comical.

With Miranda Hart as Susan's spy supporter, Nancy; Bobby Cannavale as the janus-faced arms dealer, Sergio de Luca; and Alison Janney as the CIA Boss, Elaine Croker, it seems we have the making of something fresh in Hollywood.  It took many years, but it looks like Tinseltown has finally made a female spy character worthy of a sequel or two. Of course, some might prefer to label it a franchise.



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