Director: Simon Kinberg
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, Sebastian Stan, Jason Flemyng, Édgar Ramírez
Genre: Action thriller
Country / Language: USA / English, Spanish, French, German ● Duration: 2 hr 4 min
Release date: January 21, 2022 (India)
‘The 355’ has been a highly anticipated action flick.
With its rights being sold at Cannes some years ago and with big names attached to the project (with star Marion Cotillard before she was replaced with Diane Kruger) and Simon Kinberg attached to direct at the time when he was fresh off the ‘X Men: Dark Phoenix’, this female-ensemble espionage action thriller was touted to be the next Hollywood blockbuster. But the project also met some derision, even before release, because for all its fanfare, ‘Dark Phoenix’ was a critical bomb with the ‘X Men’ fans. Moreover, the screenplay has been penned by Theresa Rebeck who is infamously known for 2004’s disastrous Halle Berry-starrer ‘Catwoman’.
So have Kinberg and Rebeck learned from their mistakes and redeemed themselves with this new project? This author has not watched ‘Dark Phoenix’ but has been unfortunate enough to view ‘Catwoman’. ‘The 355’, compared to that film which cast a looming shadow over Theresa Rebeck’s career, is most definitely an improvement on all levels: artistic, cinematic and more.
‘The 355’ is an action movie starring the extremely talented and gifted cast which boasts Jessica Chastain (‘Interstellar’!), Diane Kruger (‘Inglourious Basterds’!), Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o (’12 Years A Slave’!), Spanish icon Penelope Cruz and the Chinese film star Fan Bingbing. They are further supported by Sebastian Stan and Édgar Ramírez.
Apart from some clumsily done action sequences, there is enough intrigue and thrills to look out for. Some action-packed scenes are almost fascinating to watch with the fierce Diane Kruger making her entry with big guns or bikes or with a heavy-duty truck.
The Moroccan marketplace scene is also expertly executed by managing the crowds and chaos without confusing the audience.
‘The 355’ can be compared in some ways to last year’s movies: ‘Kate’ and ‘Gunpowder Milkshake’, two action flicks which also follow strong women doing covert operations and being chased by bad guys. While both ‘Kate’ and ‘Gunpowder Milkshake’ had strong and promising scripts, the executions were not something to talk home about as they almost undid the original intriguing concepts with the lifeless direction and sound editing. In that way, ‘The 355’ is the opposite of the two flicks.
It has a largely formulaic script (enemies turned teammates, betrayals and revelations, the boss being the bad guy and so on) but the execution is done rather well to make it more than the sum of its formulaic parts. This is thanks to the charismatic cast of the five leading ladies.
Nyong’o and Cruz are a joy to watch as they deal with their new found status of being outcast criminals and ‘traitors’. Their respective subplots involving domestic life are vivid and touching. We do wish there was more to see more from Fan Bingbing since she only appears in the second half of the movie and doesn’t get many lines to utter.
In spite of the visible abundance of strong women and themes, there are no poorly written “yay feminism” one-liners to make you roll your eyes. The closest moment to that will be towards the end of the movie when a character alludes to the American Revolutionary-era secret female spy going by the codename 355 but even that is a joyous and celebratory moment.
‘The 355’ may not be an ‘iconic’, groundbreaking female espionage film in any objective way, but it still has enough star power, glamour and location hopping to keep you hooked. With a magnetic five-woman cast of Chastain, Kruger, Nyong’o, Cruz and Bingbing, you can hardly ever go wrong.
‘The 355’ is now playing in theatres.
Also read: Shyam Singha Roy: Could have been a fun film, but it isn’t. Here’s why