I’ve always felt that the proposal of changing a character into something it wasn’t originally was a bad idea. For example having a woman or an actor like Idris Elba playing James Bond. To say you feel that way will get you called a misogynist or racist but it has absolutely nothing to do with either. It is just noting that after decades of a character becoming familiar with the public it seems like a publicity stunt to completely change things with said character. I would feel it was equally wrong to remake SHAFT or SUPERFLY and replace the lead character with a white actor.
Times have changed since that first glimpse of Bond way back with DR. NO in 1962. Women are no longer the stay at home baking cookies types thank goodness. But to have a movie featuring Jane Bond would be ridiculous. Better that a movie come out that features a female lead doing all of those things on her own. Thank goodness that’s happened with THE 355.
In Columbia a drug lord’s son comes up with a new computer program, one that can’t be traced and can take over anything connected to computers from a plane to an entire electric grid. There is only one copy of the program and one person who can create it. Things get nasty, the programmer is killed and the drive is stolen after some gunplay. Now the word is out and every spy organization and nefarious villain wants their hands on it.
CIA agent “Mace” Brown (Jessica Chastain) is given the assignment to pick up the drive storing the program from Columbian DNI agent Rojas (Edgar Ramirez), the man who picked it up in the shootout. Accompanying her on this mission is her longtime partner Nick Fowler (Sebastian Stan). Just as the handoff is about to take place a woman steps in to steal the drive but gets the bag of money instead. Mace and Nick follow taking different routes. Mace loses her and Nick is killed in an alley.
Mace is told by her handler to retrieve the drive at any and all costs. She travels to London to recruit an old friend to help her, electronics/computer whiz and former MI6 agent Khadijah Adiyeme (Lupita Nyong’o). The pair set out for Paris again to retrieve the drive. In the meantime it turns out the woman who snagged the money bag was a German undercover BND agent, Marie Schmidt (Diane Kruger) who was also trying to get the drive.
Luis, on the run, contacts his handlers and arranges to hand the drive over to Graciela Rivera (Penelope Cruz) in a fish market. Mace and Khadijah have tracked him there but so has Marie. Unfortunately so have the bad guys. A shoot out follows and the drive is lost and Marie take Graciela back to her hotel room. Soon after Mace and Khadijah break into their room and a truce is met. The four women will unite to find the drive and save the world.
More surprises, more twists and more fighting and shooting follow making this one action packed film. It is exactly what one would expect from a Bond movie. But here we are presented with four accomplished women who are the best there is at this business. It is a film that features women in the roles usually assigned to men and it shows they can do it just as good. This is what was needed, not stepping into the shadows of a now familiar character but a group of characters on their own.
Each and every one of the actresses here play their parts to perfection. They are not just eye candy for once but are the action stars that were needed. Director Simon Kinberg, with only two directing credits but tons of screenwriting and producing credits to his name, does a wonderful job of combining the action and story to make this a movie that will hold your attention from start to finish.
After the film ended I couldn’t help but wonder if this
group of actresses could reunite again to bring us yet another adventure of the
355. The end of the movie explains what that is. It was the designation given
to a female spy during the Revolutionary War. The tradition carries on in these
spies. With their own franchise set in motion the only thing stopping it from
happening is that the film didn’t get much of a push at the box office.
Hopefully that will change since it’s now available to rent and screening on
the Peacock streaming service. One can only hope.
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