Review of Spy (2015) by Shawn W — 16 Sep 2015

I grew to like Melissa McCarthy when I first saw her in Bridesmaids (which I liked a lot) and if like me you liked her in that then you will probably like this. Spy is from the same stable and is therefore a similar kind of humour. A couple of belly laughs in this for me also along with very funny comic turns from Jason Statham and "50 cent piece" as he is referred to. I like it when celebrities send themselves up and people like P Diddy went up in my estimations when I watched him in Get Him To The Greek.

Susan (McCarthy) works in a deskbound role in the vermin infested brain centre of the CIA. Her job is to support agents in the field and her partner is Bradley Fine (Jude Law). Circumstances conspire that leads to Susan being sent into the field with her friend Nancy (Miranda Hart) as her support. Susan is given a series of identities that conform to the stereotype of her personal circumstances and usually involves cats, cakes, knitting and wigs that put another 20 years on her age. Her spy kit also contains various things that adhere to this including stool softening pills which are anti poison tablets. She is assigned to gather intelligence on the daughter of an arms dealer the pompous and stuck up Raina (Rose Byrne). Things inevitably go awry and usually involves rouge agent Rick Ford (Jason Statham). Ford resigns in protest at Susan's deployment to the field but takes it upon himself to finish the assignment without the assistance of the agency. Instead he is nothing but a hindrance and there is a funny scene where he inadvertently picks up a bomb and Susan tries to warn him of this.

The cast is good but as is often the case in comedies it's going to hinge upon your opinion of McCarthy and writer Feig's humour. McCarthy's interactions with Byrne are particularly funny and Statham is very good at sending himself up. I liked the fact that it played on stereotypes and laughed at them without being too much to bear. For example there isn't a character called "Fat Amy" in a lame, unfunny attempt at satire. There is some quality backbiting and two faced moments that we can all related to and all tend to do in our day to day lives (whether we admit to it or not). Of course it's a ridiculous concept but it all gels together very nicely, not everything hits the target but what does hit scores very highly.