Mark Reviews Movies: THE 355

The 355, Universal Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 6, 2022

The foundation of a potentially effective spy story is present in The 355. This movie features a strong, international cast of talented women, with each of them playing characters who possess somewhat distinct skills.

We have the fighter, the technology expert, the one who's good with explosives, and the group's odd duck, who isn't trained in any of the spy stuff but can read people like an open book. A fifth spy, hailing from a fifth country (giving the story a thinly optimistic view that all sorts of differences can be put aside for some greater good), eventually arrives. With all of the usual team roles filled, she basically can and does do whatever's required by the plot at any given moment.

That character, despite only becoming important in the third act, kind of serves as a reflection of the movie's general attitude about these characters. They all do whatever the plot requires of them at every given moment—and there are a lot of plot-necessary moments here—but not much else.

The cast isn't exactly wasted, because much of co-writer/director Simon Kinberg's movie depends on these actors. At the forefront, we have Jessica Chastain as Mason "Mace" Browne, a CIA agent who is devoted to the job, refuses any personal attachments, and can beat just about anybody in a hand-to-hand fight. Chastain convinces us of all of that, which is about the bare minimum in terms of character. That's not on her, of course, because Kinberg and Theresa Rebeck's screenplay only gives each of these actors the bare minimum with which to work.

The plot reflects a similar attitude. It's the typical globetrotting adventure, as Mace and her eventual, tenuous team travel from various places—with Paris, Marrakesh, and Shanghai being the main ones, while a jungle in Colombia, London, and Berlin make brief appearances. At each one, they do the typical spy stuff.

There's a pair of chases and fights in Paris, as well as one combination of those in Marrakesh, and then, much of the climactic action takes place in at an auction house and in a skyscraper hotel room in Shanghai. The script seems more interested in getting these characters to those action sequences than it is in, well, anything else.

As such, the plot needs a MacGuffin. It comes in the form of a device that can hack into and take control of any public or private network—or something like that. In practical terms, it makes a cargo plane explode, crashes passenger airliners, and causes blackouts, and that's all we need to know. It's a big enough deal that the CIA and other intelligence services around the world want to stop it from getting into the wrong hands.

Mace goes after it first, with the help of fellow agent Nick (Sebastian Stan), who gets a quick bit of flirtation with Mace and then disappears for reasons that won't come as a surprise to anyone who knows how these twisty, turn-filled tales generally operate. Eventually, Mace enlists the aid of former MI6 agent and tech guru Khadijah (Lupita Nyong'o), who wants a quiet life with the man she loves but can't ignore this mission.

Those two end up crossing paths and joining forces with German BND agent Marie (Diane Kruger), who gets that clichéd scene of her superior explaining that she has problems with authority, and Colombian DNI psychologist Graciela (Penélope Cruz), who just wants to go home to her family. A Chinese secret agent named Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan) ends up in the team later—just in time to reveal all the unexplained twists and for the big shootout at the climax.

The casting here is pretty special in a few ways, partially because of its international nature, but mostly because the main actors are quite good—surely better than the material allows them to be. Most of their time is spent stating exposition, running from or fighting with or shooting at various goons of the anonymous variety, and then repeating the process in a different part of the world.

A scene at a bar, in which the initial quartet exchange stories of each one's first mission, is the only significant moment in which any of these characters is given some time to breathe between plot-focused dialogue and all that running/fighting/shooting. The scene doesn't reveal anything about these characters that hasn't already been established. It is notable, though, if only because the actors get a chance to escape the movie's routine.

All of that routine material—the central threat, the assorted villains, the traveling from place to place, the action sequences—is just that: routine. There's little reason to care about the apocalyptic device or the villain (played by Jason Flemyng) who wants it for generic villainy (A rather cataclysmic series of events is more or less brushed aside by everyone). As for the action sequences, they're serviceable enough to just feel repetitive as a whole.

Again, the foundation for something more specifically effective is right there—in the cast and the broadly defined characters of The 355. The filmmakers don't take advantage and simply take the easy, familiar route.

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