Film Review: The Spy Who Dumped Me
Genre: Action, Comedy, Thriller.
Rating: 2.5/5
117 minutes
Director: Susanna Fogel
Had it not been for the gory violence and almost continual action scenes, I would have been tempted to classify ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’ as a screwball comedy. A spin on the title of the 1977 ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (Roger Moore’s third Bond outing), the film opens in Lithuania — or so we are told.
Audrey (Mila Kunis), a cashier at a 7/11 sort of store, has broken up with her boyfriend Drew (Justin Theroux) over a sms: see how treacherous technology can be! Not long thereafter, he comes barging into her house followed by carbine toting hoodlums who shoot him dead, but not before he hands over to her something to be delivered in a café in Vienna, after confessing to her that he’s a CIA agent. With bestie Morgan (Kate McKinnon), an unemployed actress — who was present when it all happened — the two traverse all over Europe followed by the armed assassins.
This, precisely, is the premise of ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’, the second directorial feature of Susanna Fogel’, who’s also co-written the script with TV journalist David Iserson. There’s probably more violence here than in a Jason Bourne or James Bond film, with multiple action scenes in each of the cities the girls journey through — LA, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam. The girls don’t have to try too hard to get into trouble. It’s the kind of chick flick that Goldie Hawn would have excelled in, had it been made four decades ago.
Completing the cast are — the sinister ex-Olympian gymnast Nadedja (Ivanna Sakhno), MI6 agent Sebastian (Sam Heughan) and CIA’s Duffer (Jasan Minhaj), who wastes no opportunity in priding himself on being a Harvard alumnus.
The stunts, credited to Bond and Bourne films stunt director Gary Powell, are noteworthy; although the same cannot be said of the score by Tyler Bates (John Wick films, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.).
If the first half is non-linear, the second half is at least ten minutes too long, despite considering the film’s run-time of under two hours.
