The Spy Who Dumped Me, Review: Jumped, Pumped, Slumped, Stumped

Pre-credit scenes à la James Bond, the JB theme variation in a couple of scenes and a title that is a clear Ian Fleming lift—remember The Spy Who Loved me? This one is an action comedy, with both components in equal measure. Action is fast and furious and the comedy punctuates the thrills, with the help of a comedians+mimics cast. The Spy Who Dumped Me is funny enough to make you chuckle and laugh at regular intervals. It is woman-centric, co-written and directed by a woman, has two women in central roles, another as their nemesis, two women back-packers who become unwary victims and yet another as the head of MI6.JD as Bond’s M?                                                                                                                         

Audrey (Mila Kunis) and Morgan (Kate McKinnon), two thirty-year-old best friends in Los Angeles, are thrust unexpectedly into an international conspiracy when Audrey’s ex-boyfriend Drew (Justin Theroux) shows up at their apartment with a team of deadly assassins on his trail. But before he stops some bullets, he asks his ex-girlfriend to deliver a mini-statuette to someone called Verne in Vienna, Austria.

Surprising even themselves, the duo jump into action, on the run throughout Europe, from assassins and a suspicious-but-charming secret agent (Sam Heughan), who claims he is from the CIA. He tells them that Drew was also CIA, and they must help him to abort a plot that could pose serious danger to the whole world. To her advantage, Audrey is a crack-shot with video game guns and Morgan is a fantastic mimic cum trapeze artiste. They put their talents to good use and manage to dodge their would-be assassins. But have they met their match in Nadedja (Ivanna Sakhno), a Ukranian gymnast and deadly eliminator?

Co-written by Susanna Fogel (Life Partners, co-writer, director) and David Iserson (TV writer), the script has Drew for a man’s name and Morgan Freeman is the co-heroine’s appellation, believe it or not. The head of MI6, played by a woman, like I said, is compared to Judi Dench and...I could go on, but the point that I want to make is that many jokes are referential, campy and insider in nature. Like in a popular spy novel I read in the early 70s, the two women find an ingenious way of hiding a much sought after object. Lodged in a place where no man would be able to conceal it, there is constant reference to the secret hideout, which would be unmentionable in a film that children could watch.

While on the object...I mean subject, why did it have to be what is was? Couldn’t the writers come up with something different, something odd-shaped or sharp, perhaps? In addition, the whole thumb track is both gory and funny, but not the stuff parents would want their children to see. A really funny punch comes in the shape of the couple who run the assassination and associated crimes racket. While the heroines are dangling from a rope, they are confronted by the man and wife who look like...! Strewn with corpses all along, including her boy-friend, Audrey, and her bosom pal Morgan seem to be only mildly affected. That’s okay in a regular cold-blooded spy thriller, not in a sensitive--maybe funny in many parts, but sensitive nevertheless—narrative, you expect some sentiment and more reflection than is depicted.

Directed by Susanna Fogel, the film uses flashback once too many times. You get confused whether this is happening after Drew and Audrey broke-up or when they were still together. This is my first exposure to the directorial merits of Fogel, and she scores pretty good. The way she has shot the scenes featuring the gritty Nadedja and the lead duo, both in the torture chamber and in the trapeze act are good examples. One really funny joke is the dead-pan Nadedja trying to decide which American female couple she should target with her telescopic gun-sight, because several female couples in her range of them answer to the description given to her on her earphone. The obligatory car and motorcycle chase is one to dazzle you and can match some of the best seen in many a year.

Mila Kunis (Black Swan, Jupiter Ascending, Bad Moms) is complimented for her eyes in the film. Here’s another compliment, in black and white. Just the right shape for a person who is forced to do a lot of running, she is ideal for a woman who changes from a video-game addict to a real-life gun-toter. Kate McKinnon (comedienne, mimic; Ghostbusters, Masterminds, Office Christmas Party, Rough Night) is the life-blood of the movie. Amidst so many poker-faced spies, her mimicry and variable diction are the real comic pieces.

Sam Heughan (Scottish; Emulsion, Heart of Lightness) When the Starlight Ends) gets a good break and handles both action and dialogue crisply. Justin Theroux (Your Highness Wanderlust, The Girl on the Train), who is a well-known Hollywood writer of films like Iron Man, is only acting here, and has a small role, but with a twist. Hasan Minhaj (stand-up comedian; comes from family originally from Uttar Pradesh, India) plays a CIA operative with confidence, though he has to carry the burden of a name like Duffer. Ivanna Sakhno (Ukranian; The Body Tree, Can't Take It Back, Pacific Rim Uprising) maybe an amalgam of Oddjob and Jaws, not in the literal sense but as inspiration from Ian Fleming, yet she steals at least two whole scenes with her poker face and demeanour. Sadly, if there is an unlikely sequel, she is not likely to feature in it, and don’t ask me why.

Gillian Anderson, Fred Melamed, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Tom Stourton, Jane Curtin and Paul Reiser form the supporting cast.

What is perhaps the best thing about the movie is the fact that everybody seems to be having a ball. Fogel takes jibes at a dozen names and nationalities, and gets away with it all. 117 minutes is a bit long for the story, which sags into repetition towards the middle only to show unexpected buoyancy soon afterwards.

The Spy Who Dumped Me is not really about the spy who dumped Audrey; it is more about how Audrey travel through Europe leaving behind a trail of corpses and two disgruntled backpackers. So, besides Dumped, there is Jumped, Pumped, Slumped, Stumped, but not _umped (the h is silent and absent).

Rating: ** ½

Trailer: https://www.thespywhodumpedme.movie/#/trailer2

Coming up: Christopher Robin