Film Review: The Spy Who Dumped Me

Have you noticed how strong of a year it has been for comedies? It seems like at least once a month we’ve been getting a really great comedy be it family fare like Paddington 2, Hotel Transylvania: Summer Vacation, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies, or the more adult oriented stuff like Game Night, Blockers, Sorry To Bother You, and all the stuff in between with Uncle Drew, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Even if they might not all be future classics, they’re remarkably more solid than we’ve come to expect in recent years. And you can add The Spy Who Dumped Me on that list as well.

The is about two friends, Audrey (Mila Kunis) and Morgan (Kate McKinnon), who – upon finding out that Audrey’s ex-boyfriend, Drew (Justin Theroux) is actually a spy who works for the CIA – they end up getting entangled in an international conspiracy that has multiple groups searching for a flash drive in Audrey’s possession.

I almost feel bad because this is coming a week after Mission: Impossible – Fallout, so any praise I give this movie will ultimately feel dwarfed by the Tom Cruise film. It’s a shame because taken on its own terms, The Spy Who Dumped Me is actually a slicky spy action flick that is as exciting and compelling. Sure, it doesn’t have any grand spectacle, but for one of these mid-budget actioners, it’s rock solid. Falling in line with a lot of comedies released this year, gone are the flat lighting and stilted cinematography. This film is shot, lit, plotted, and edited like a straightforward Bond riff. This is the second film from director and co-writer, Susanna Fogel, whose previous film was a 2014 indie rom-com, Life Partners, and she shows some major promise as an action director. An early shootout in a Vienna restaurant is thrilling and ruthless in its violence, and it leads right into a fun car chase that has some seriously great stunt work and choreography. There’s a sense of geography in these action sequences, clearly laid out stakes, plus some fun setups and payoffs that are grounded in character. It doesn’t half-ass any of the action stuff, which a lot of mainstream action comedies tend to do.

As far as the comedy goes, I’m not quite as enthused about it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t find it funny, I actually found myself laughing quite a bit. It’s just that it relies so much on the chemistry of Kunis and McKinnon to carry it, which is does, but it’s at the expense of having any ambitions beyond a funny line here and there. The women are great in the movie, and they can certainly carry it because they’re absolute pros with years of experience at stuff like this. It’s as if they spent so much time making sure all the spy stuff in the movie looked legit, including the obligatory convoluted twists and turns, that they forgot to add jokes, thus hoping that the actors can riff as they go along. Thankfully, because they’re as good as they are, they make it work, and without resorting to the kind of grating line-o-rama/endless improv stuff since the plot literally has no time for that. I’m probably making it sound much worse than it actually is. The comedy is fine, it just didn’t wow me in the same way the action sequences did.

Aside from Kunis and McKinnon, the rest of the cast like Justin Theroux, Sam Heughan, Ivanna Sakhno, and Gillian Anderson (who I would’ve preferred to see more of) is merely serviceable, but don’t get much to do since they’re cast to essentially play the role as they would if the movie was a straightforward spy movie. The only exception being Hasan Minhaj, who would be playing a comic relief in the same way Simon Pegg does in the Mission: Impossible movies. But that said, them playing their roles straight further emphasizes the humorous reactions that Kunis and McKinnon bring as the absurdity piles on.

So, while the film is far from flawless, I was still very pleasantly surprised by The Spy Who Dumped Me. As someone who wasn’t expecting much, I found myself endeared by its two leads, who are funny and charismatic and play off the insanity around them in very inspired ways. Susanna Fogel, along with her co-writer, David Iserson, have managed to put together a film that feels like it could fall in line with any number of spy movies out there, while adding their own irreverent twist to the genre. The filmmaking is surprisingly high octane, keeping the action as intense and well staged as possible. I hope Fogel gets to make a lot more movies after this because her ability to balance character driven humor with solid action filmmaking is something that is so rare in studio comedies. I had a good time with it, and while a little tinkering could’ve made it an all-timer, it’s still a satisfying experience that feels refreshing after we approach the end of the bombastic summer movie season.