The Spy Who Dumped Me
I never did review the reboot of “Ghostbusters” Paul Feig did back in 2016, on account that I didn’t see it in theatres, so I never got to sing the dizzying praises of Kate McKinnon’s spacey character in that film. Thankfully, Susanna Fogel’s action-comedy, “The Spy Who Dumped Me,” will give me ample opportunity to do so here. McKinnon feels like she is from another planet in both films, but there’s a sincerity to the way she plays such characters that is the reason she is so funny doing it. She is the best thing in Fogel’s film, although the film, on the whole, is a fun one to watch.
The premise is easily summed up. Audrey (Mila Kunis) and Morgan (McKinnon) are best friends out celebrating Audrey’s birthday, which comes after she has been dumped by her boyfriend of almost a year, Drew (Justin Theroux). Later that night, the friends are burning the stuff that Drew had left behind when he unexpectedly calls, begging her not to burn everything. The catch is, he is on the run from people trying to kill him in Eastern Europe. When he unexpectedly shows up at their apartment shortly thereafter, he tells her the truth, and that a trophy he left behind holds something a lot of people will kill for. When he is shot in front of her, Audrey and Morgan end up on the run, and have to leave their life behind to try and finish what Drew was working on with what’s in the trophy.
Fogel has the character stuff solid in the script that she wrote with David Iserson, and she gives her actors some enjoyable beats to play, whether it’s Theroux or Sam Heughan (from TV’s “Outlander”) as a supposed MI-6 member or Hasan Minhaj as Heughan’s partner to cameos from Jane Curtain and Paul Reiser as Morgan’s parents or Gillian Anderson as the leader of the intelligence operation Audrey and Morgan find themselves in. This is a very slight movie that’s basically just at the service of the two leads, and Kunis and McKinnon are kind of great together. Kunis as the straight part of the team is a good choice, and one that pays off particularly well when she has to improvise in a car chase after their driver is shot, but having her paired with McKinnon is where this film has a great level of inspiration. There’s something about McKinnon that just makes her weird and wonderful to watch, and the way she delivers a punchline, whether it’s a verbal one or a physical one, is a sight to behold. If for no other reason, see the movie for her. Overall, I’m kind of “meh” on the film, which hits a lot of predictable buttons, but the actresses at the center of the action more than make it worth your while to check this out.
