Mediocre flick or start of something special?

Tinashe Kusema
Film Review

“THE 355” movie is almost a month old, but it has made very little money at the box office and received a lot of negative reviews.

The film bombing at the box office should come as no surprise given the lack of buzz prior to its release and the fact that it was soon available online weeks after its release.

However, it is the hate that I find puzzling, especially from social media.

Producer Simon Kinberg is being damned, while the film’s stars Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o and Sebastian Stan are being cursed in vile-laced tweets.

Now, I am not saying that the hate the film has received is not without some merit; however, I do feel that it is a bit ‘too much’.

While bad, “The 355” is not as dull as “Ghostbusters” (2016).

I feel the Paul Feig “Ghostbusters” is the film by which all-female cast movies should be measured.

I use the term “all-female cast”‘ because this is the hook behind the movie “The 355”, “Ghostbusters” and other films like “Ocean’s 8”, “American Psycho 2”, “What Men Want” and “Hustle”.

While these examples are reboots, the premise remains the same.

After the purchase of a special decryption programme drive between a drug lord and criminal mastermind Elijah Clarke ends in a shoot-out, the special device gets stolen and finds its way onto the international market.

The device, capable of hacking any electronic gadget, can only be controlled by its maker and self-destructs when anyone else tries to copy it.

With the owner dead and the device now in play, this alerts most intelligence agencies.

The Americans, Germans and Colombians send their best people –namely CIA agent Mason Browne (Chastain), BND agent Marie Schmidt (Diane Kruger) and Graciela Rivera (Cruz) – to recover it.

In the case of Rivera, while she is essentially a National Intelligence Directorate (DNI) agent, aka Columbian spy, she is just a psychologist who has been sent into the field owing to her personal ties with the rogue agent (Luis Rojas) who stole the device in the first place.

The three continuously spoil each other’s attempts to retrieve the device but later decide to work together after it falls into the hands of Elijah Clarke.

Clarke has no use for the device other than to sell it on the black market.

The three lady spies also start working together with a former British intelligence operative (MI6), Khadijah Adiyeme (Nyong’o), and a Chinese spy (MSS) Lin Min Sheng (Fan Bingbing) to fight a common enemy.

The film ticks all the boxes for your basic spy movie. There is an elaborate scheme that could cause yet another world war, high stakes, stellar action and fight sequences and your basic twists and double-crossings.

However, the problem is that we have seen all these things a dozen times.

It is like Theresa Rebeck, who wrote the story, did a copy-and-paste from previous spy novels.

But, there is something that can save this movie.

The performance by the likes of Chastain and Kruger is pulsating.

Nyong’o and Cruz also do well as supporting acts.

When one looks at “The 355” as the start or launch of a new franchise, series or show, then all the demerits disappear.

While Freckle Films is yet to announce any of the sort, there is evidence or little breadcrumbs the film leaves throughout its 124-minute runtime that points to a sequel or series launch.

“The 355” is a call sign given to the first female spy during the American Revolution, part of the Culper Ring.

Agent 355 was one of the first spies for the United States, but her real identity is unknown.

The number 355 could be decrypted from the system the Culper Ring used to mean “lady”.

Given the right treatment, “The 355” could be the first in a long line of female spy movies meant to rival Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible and The James Bond movies.

I would like to also remind critics that Cruise’s first MI movie in 1996 did not do so well amongst both critics and the audience.

However, some 26 years later, it is now the 16th highest movie franchise of all time and has grossed over US$3,5 billion on the box office.

And as a loyal ally to the feminist movie, I believe that time, and only time alone, should/will judge how good this film actually is.