Spy (2015, Dir. Paul Feig):
Behind the body-image jokes and the pratfalls, there’s a wry intelligence to Melissa McCarthy. For every potty-mouthed insult, you’ll find a moment of sweet vulnerability; each slapstick moment finds its counterpart in a subtle character quirk. The trick has been to find a starring vehicle worthy of her talents. Paul Feig, who directed her breakout role in Bridesmaids, is dead-set on giving her a franchise with Spy, which pokes fun at the idea of roly-poly CIA analyst Susan Cooper (McCarthy) thrust into international glamour and intrigue. Packed with pedigreed co-stars, filmed competently in cosmopolitan locations (Paris, Rome and Budapest), and burdened with a plot that stretches the run time past two hours, Spy doesn’t have the spark of a classic comedy, but it’s an amiable outing that’s at its best when it allows McCarthy to rollick and roll. At first responding to put-downs with muttered asides (“Oh, come on” is her common response when a thoughtless insult is tossed at her), the film is at its most invigorating when she gets mad as hell and decides not to take it anymore, her wit an even match with her vulgarity — and that’s when she’s not busy engaging in death matches versus assassins who look like they’ve sauntered off a runway.
To get to those moments, one must slog through a bunch of gross-out jokes that are de rigueur for a Paul Feig comedy: rat shit on cake, an embarrassing case of pink eye, inconvenient vomit on a corpse, the sight of a man’s esophagus melting away. At least Feig is generous with the supporting actors, even though the results are hit-or-miss. As the self-satisfied spy who’s the object of McCarthy’s affections, Jude Law is a daffy Bondian hoot, while Jason Statham, making fun of his own hard-guy image as Law’s rival, isn’t necessarily funny, but at least he’s game. Less amusing are Miranda Hart as Cooper’s awkward work buddy and Peter Serafinowicz as the local Italian operative that gets the hots for McCarthy — it’s not their fault the characters are one-note, with that note hammered over and over. Fortunately the movie has a secret weapon with Rose Byrne’s Rayna Boyanov. Bobbing about in high heels, topped with beehive hair, swaddled in attitude and haute couture, she’s a superbaddie who also happens to be an insecure bitch with daddy issues, the mirror image to McCarthy’s disrespected Cooper. Disdain is her predominant mode of address: “When I first saw you in that abortion of a dress, it was if you were saying, ‘This is what I’ve got, world — it’s hideous but it’s mine,” she purrs to McCarthy. When the two of them joust, each pushing the other to new heights of rage and profanity, Spy finds its footing as a sly deviation from the standard boys-with-toys spy flick – here, the deadliest weapons are snide comments on someone’s looks, and the sight of Byrne lifting a demure middle finger McCarthy’s way has more impact than an exploding car.
But there’s the rub – Feig follows the formula beats of the genre, and thus we have the usual car chase, brutal hand-to-hand fights spiced up with slow-motion shots of bodies cracking as they hit pavement, a finale with a runaway helicopter and a nuclear bomb. Compare the hijinks to Feig’s Bridesmaids, which rooted its outrageousness in identifiable situations and emotions. The genre machinations of Spy, adequate as they may be, can’t supply the same resonance, so we’re left with McCarthy and Byrne’s dirty-sweet performances. That they make the proceedings worth watching is no small praise, even if it’s small praise for the rest of the film.
