Argylle
At its core, “Argylle” has a solid idea that is lifted from one of the great adventure films of all-time. What starts out as a riff of “Romancing the Stone” turns into a convoluted, goofy mess that really abandons any sense of reality along the way. Throughout, there are good things about Matthew Vaughn’s spy thriller- largely having to do with its cast- but when it goes off the rails, boy does it never stop.
The role of Elly Conway, a novelist whose spy thrillers about Agent Argylle hit a little to close to home, is a great one for an actress to dig into, and this might be the best role Bryce Dallas Howard has had in a very long time. She is perfect as a mild-mannered novelist who suddenly finds herself thrust into the world of global espionage. Apparent, her latest book about Argylle is starting to reflect reality, and a spy named Aiden Wilde (Sam Rockwell) hopes to keep her safe from a rogue spy agency led by Bryan Cranston’s Director Ritter.
“Argylle” begins with a sequence as we watch Elly’s Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) meet up with a mark (Dua Lipa’s Lagrange) to try and apprehend her. It becomes a prolonged action sequence that is revealed to be the end of Conway’s latest book in the series. The “Romancing the Stone” template is a great starting off point, and as we get deeper into the adventure, we find that Elly’s life is not quite what it seems. That’s a fine direction to go, but how Vaughn and screenwriter Jason Fuchs follow it is through upending Elly’s entire reality every several minutes, especially whom she can trust. It all becomes a ridiculous hybrid of “Romancing the Stone” with “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” told over 139 minutes when under two hours (or at least with three twists fewer) might have made this a stronger film overall. There have been plenty of great examples of ordinary women thrust into unexpected action this film could have taken cues from to realize it didn’t need to complicate things this much.
What keeps “Argylle” engaging is the cast. It starts with Howard and Rockwell, who have great chemistry that blossoms the more Elly gets involved in the mystery. Cranston makes a terrific heavy exasperated with his underlings, and on the opposite end, we get Samuel L. Jackson as a laid back spy master as excited about sports as he is getting important files. As Elly’s mother, there is Catherine O’Hara, and as always she is a delight, especially when she gets to run with her character’s silliness. Cavill and John Cena (as his partner) have a harder time of it, but they are fun in their roles. All of these actors keep us watching as Vaughn just throughs multitudes of ridiculous CGI and set pieces at us in a film that would overdose in self-indulgence if not for its cast. They are the highlight of “Argylle” (ok, so is the cat), but they can only take this film so far.
