Movie review 'Spy': Spy versus spy

There are two kinds of spies. The ones who serve in the field are the guys who do the cool stuff, they get to do car chases, get invited to fancy parties, gunfights and explosions. The other kind of spying involves the ones who sit at mission control at the desk, providing satellite support and other information. Spy is the story of the desk jockey Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) who is the voice on the other end of the earpiece for super-spy Bradley Fine (Jude Law). She has concerns over her neglected work as an analyst, over his overweight appearance and the fact she has an unrequited crush on Fine. An unexpected incident leads to Susan becoming a field agent after the CIA finds that all its major field agents are compromised. Susan is appointed to track down Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne), a devious socialite and femme fatale and stop the sale of a nuclear weapon. Accompanying her on her misadventures is rogue agent Rick Ford (Jason Statham) and Italian lothario Aldo (Peter Serafinowicz).

Like all spy spoofs, the movie’s central gimmick is that of an unlikely spy, instead of suave super-spy James Bond, you get Johnny English, instead of cool hot ninja, you get a middle-aged woman with weight issues. What makes Spy work though is that the humour of the film comes from the fact that the unlikely spy is a better spy than the ones who want to be Bond (Jude Law) or Bourne (Jason Statham). After all, what is the point of being a spy if someone can spot you by the make of their suit, your choice of drink or preferred sports car. As such, Spy is a movie of unexpected charm and style, let down by its two-hour long duration. Comedies, as a rule, benefit from a shorter runtime and the same would have applied for Spy.

Melissa McCarthy is brilliant in her role as Susan Cooper. She’s a charismatic performer with genuine warmth — a comic timing that is equally good at getting in the one-liners and the demands of physical comedy. She somehow manages to keep Susan Cooper a comic figure while at the same time emphasising her as a reasonably competent spy. Indeed, far more so than the other characters. Jude Law, as an actor, has made the unexpected transition from leading man to character actor and supporting player. He’s very effective as a James Bond-wannabe. Law is also a terrific comic performer, as is Peter Serafinowicz and Bobby Cannavale in their smaller roles. Meanwhile, Rose Byrne has a lot of fun with a highly campy performance in the role of the Slavic seductress.

The funniest performance though is of Jason Statham who is spoofing his work in movies like The Transporter and The Italian Job. He plays a would-be macho tough-guy spy who is such an incompetent that he makes Inspector Clouseau look like Sherlock Holmes. The real problem with Spy though is not so much the quality of its jokes (some of the gags are really funny) or that the acting is weak. It’s just that the spy genre these days is a dead mess of ideas. The recent James Bond movies are grimmer, moodier works where the action is realistic and cold. The light spirit of adventure that characterised Bond movies in ’60s is no longer true and Spy addresses that sleuth fantasy more than anything. Where it differs is the more contemporary focus on women at the workplace.

The idea that Melissa McCarthy’s Susan Cooper was relegated to a desk job rather than fieldwork because her friendly male co-worker coerced her into serving as a sidekick is definitely something that works in a contemporary context. It was possible for Spy to have been a funnier, shorter film. An office comedy set entirely at CIA, which is fundamentally like any other office (the backbiting, the gossip, the canteen cliques, the poor stationery, the bad hygiene) but the stakes are very very high. Paul Feig, a collaborator of Judd Apatow, wrote and directed the film and if its not as funny as Bridesmaids or other films of the kind, it is nonetheless highly entertaining.