Movie review: ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’

FloridaGator80

Sometimes I cannot separate an actor from his or her intellectual deficiencies or their spouse/significant other. Take a couple of hacks such as Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. The politics and self-importance of both have spoiled any film either has been in since “Bull Durham” and I won’t even bother to write anything other than the name Sean Penn as to give an example of a cornerstone of unadulterated ignorance. However, I changed my mind a bit about Mila Kunis while watching “The Spy Who Dumped Me.” She has awful taste in life with being married to a talentless fool named Ashton Kutcher (he of the “I helped ruin ‘Two and a Half Men’” infamy), but she really does an admirable job in “The Spy Who Dumped Me” and I might check out some of her future work – as if she cares. I do hope she manages to continue efforts such as this one.

‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’
(2018; 117 minutes; rated R; directed by Susanna Fogel and starring Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux, Jane Curtain and Sam Haughan)

A BREEZY ACTION-COMEDY-DRAMA … YES, REALLY

(NOTE: I updated this review with final box office totals for 2018 on April 1, 2019. I expanded tis review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on April 12, 2025.)

I didn’t know what to expect from “The Spy Who Dumped Me” when we arrived at the theater. I didn’t do an online search of the plot, so it could have been a spoof à la “James Bond” through an “Airplane!”-like lens. It isn’t. True, “The Spy Who Dumped Me” is a comedy, but it is much more and the best thing about it is the impressive effort by Kate McKinnon of “Saturday Night Live” fame and the awesome energy she delivers with such verve.

I didn’t want to like Mila Kunis because she is the real-life partner of the talentless fool Ashton Kutcher (I do judge entertainers by the company they keep and their own personal opinions), but, simply put, she is solid in “The Spy Who Dumped Me” and manages to convey her character almost as well as McKinnon. However, don’t be fooled: Each needs the other. Without Kunis, McKinnon would have come off as too over-the-top and without McKinnon there would have been no reason to do the film with Kunis as the lone headliner.

In the biggest plus for “The Spy Who Dumped Me,” the two headliners project great on-screen chemistry and I hope they decide to continue to work together again.

Further, beyond discovering McKinnon’s big-screen talent as well as Kunis,’ I also found an up-and-coming director who is new to the big screen and really enjoyed the effort by Susanna Fogel that brings us “The Spy Who Dumped Me.” She shows she can really work both action as well as comedy and doing either one successfully isn’t easy – much less doing both successfully at the same time.

Some critics have given a thumbs-down to “The Spy Who Dumped Me” because it isn’t either a pure comedy or pure action-adventure-drama. I don’t know, but Melissa McCarthy did a good job in this field with “Spy” (click here to read my review) and while “The Spy Who Dumped Me” isn’t quite as good at that one, I don’t know how you can judge it down because of its comedic component.

Well, just as you suspend disbelief over little things such as Kunis and McKinnon conveniently having their passports in their car just when they need to fly to Europe on a spy mission, so you should suspend listening to a critic who says this film doesn’t know what it needs to be. “The Spy Who Dumped Me” is funny; it has decent dramatic moments; and it’s CGI action is really nice. All in all, maybe not an Oscar winner, but it sure is watchable.

In brief, Kunis is dating a guy who’s missing (actually, he’s off destroying parts of Europe in his work as a spy) and she’s breaking up with him. However, it all rolls along until she’s caught up in the web of intrigue in order to save the world (how’s that sound, Mr. Bond?). Along for the ride is McKinnon as Kunis’ best friend and she’s impulsive, bombastic and always just a hair-away from out-of-control.

The plot plays out nicely with decent segues as the women move across Europe in this convoluted spy game. The best thing is, like the 007 films, it is logically seamless (OK, somewhat logically seamless) and there’s nothing to detract from the main story line. There is one twist that you see coming from a mile away and is the lone discordant note in the film. I won’t ruin the surprise, but it won’t take long for you to figure it out and should be no surprise at all if you’ve seen more than 15 movies in your life.

Further, it has a nice villain: A young ice queen former Soviet-style gymnast-turned-supermodel-turned-assassin. Whew! And, in the best surprise of all, it flows smoothly along. Now, let me look at some of the cast and tell a little more story about the film …

  • A Golden Globe nominee (not for this one), Kunis, as “Audrey Stockton,” is the steady hand on the wheel as the women pinball across Europe. She is certainly beautiful, but not distractingly so until the final party scene and she beautifully conveys a variety of emotions depending on the moment. I haven’t watched much of Kunis outside of TV’s “That ’70s Show.” She earned her nomination for “Black Swan” and notched her first credit in 1994 at age 11 on a soap opera and has been in the “Bad Moms” franchise (which I may watch now).
  • Of course, every good comedic pairing needs a bombastic one and two-time Primetime Emmy winner and eight-time nominee McKinnon as “Morgan Freeman” (yes, Morgan Freeman!) is the perfect actor to do the job. She is funny and she uses everything from a look to her physical action to each of many expressions. Frankly, she does as good a job as any other actor in this role. Until I did a little research in this review I hadn’t remembered any of her work (I haven’t watched “Saturday Night Live” in many years) but then I discovered the great small part she has in “Office Christmas Party” (click here to read my review). Her win and nominations come from her work on “SNL” all but one, which is for music, is for her acting on the show. One bad note on her CV is that she’s in the execrable reboot called “Ghostbusters: Answer the Call.”

Two guys make up the espionage tandem that puts Kunis on the spot here. However and fortunately, neither character detracts from Kunis or McKinnon. At best, these guys are the stars of the big-action sequences (although Kunis does a great job in a car chase while McKinnon’s showcase is on a trapeze) and don’t become too much of a distraction – even when the film has to establish Kunis’ relationship with one.

  • A two-time Primetime Emmy winner and one-time nominee, Justin Theroux is “Drew Thayer” and he’s Kunis’ soon-to-be former boyfriend. Theroux does his character OK, but he’s a little too old for Kunis in this one (in real life, Theroux is 12 years older than Mila). Although solid in the action stuff, Theroux could use a few lessons about emotion and how to deal it out on screen. To be blunt, a different actor was needed for this one. I haven’t seen much of the work by Theroux and he’s been in “Mullholland Dr.” and “American Psycho.” He was also in “Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi.” Theroux won for Norman Lear’s “Live in Front of a Studio Audience: ‘All in the Family’ and ‘Good Times’” and “Live in Front of a Studio Audience: ‘The Facts of Life’ and “Diff’rent Strokes’ – both sketch comedies including Will Ferrell and Jimmy Fallon.
  • Better than Theroux is Sam Heughan as “Sebastian Henshaw” and he, too, is good at action. He’s only marginally better than Theroux at emotion, but still, he’s better. After that, there’s really not much to write about Heughan. His resume is mostly TV (including “Outlander”) and three previous films and now he’s branching out to movies. Unlike for Theroux, I would like to see some of his work in the future.

The supporting cast drops off quickly to a bunch of never-heard-abouts with a few wonderful exceptions. Heading this up is “SNL” icon and Golden Globe nominee (not for this one) Jane Curtain, but be warned, unfortunately you also have to suffer the usually moping fool named Paul Reiser (but, in a stunning turn of events, he doesn’t do a bad job … actually a good one).

They play “Carol” and “Arnie” and they’re McKinnon’s understanding parents (understanding about her foibles from U.S. Customs problems to killing someone). Each plays the character with conviction and you get just enough of each.

As for others, just about the only two worth mentioning are Gillian Anderson as “Wendy,” who is the Judi Dench-like character as the spy organization’s iron-fisted leader from recent “007” films, and newcomer Ivanna Sakhno as “Nadedja,” who is the merciless supermodel/former gymnast as the coldest, baddest and most depraved of all the killers.

  • A Golden Globe winner and three-time nominee for TV’s iconic “The X Files,” Gillian Anderson is merely efficient as “Wendy” in a very small role. Anderson delivers her lines efficiently and doesn’t fumble when she’s carrying the ball in this one. Anderson is best remembered as “Dana Scully” in TV’s iconic “The X-Files” and she one of her nominations was for the TV miniseries “Bleak House.”
  • Sakhno is pitch-perfect as the stone-faced assassin. She knocks this one off with aplomb (no pun intended) and shows more poise than you’d expect from an actor with only 13 acting credits. You’ve probably seen her in “Pacific Rim: Uprising” and “The Body Tree.”

So, there you have it. “The Spy Who Dumped Me” is a wonderful film that balances its comedy with “real” action in a non-spoofing way. You find a couple of headliners with great chemistry and who do their work well and you find a newcomer director worthy of many more films.

I’m glad it doesn’t appear that “The Spy Who Dumped Me” will have the box office muscle to guarantee a sequel. I’m not saying it shouldn’t make more money, but the premise in this film has now been done and a sequel could only tarnish both it and Kunis and McKinnon. Let them do something else together (yes, please let them do something different together).

I’m starting to click on reviewing first-run films in theaters, as this is my second in as many weeks. “The Spy Who Dumped Me” was at a rising 65th at theaters with $12.3 million in ticket sales as of the original posting date of this review, according to Box Office Mojo. The No. 1 film was “Black Panther” with $700 million and at No. 2 was “Avengers: Infinity War” with $678 million. I’ll update these numbers with final rankings and sales totals after the end of the year.

UPDATE NOTE: The final totals for 2018 had “The Spy Who Dumped Me” landing with a thud at 83rd at the box office with $33.5 million. All in all, a disappointing showing for a film that deserved better. “Black Panther” and “Avengers: Infinity War” wound up No. 1 and No. 2 respectively.

Here are the other films from this year that I’ve reviewed for my blog:

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • McKinnon’s birth name is Kathryn McKinnon Berthold; Kunis’ full name is Milena Markovna Kunis and her nickname is “Goldfish;” Anderson’s middle name is Leigh; Sakhno’s middle name is Anatoliyivna; and Curtain’s middle name is Therese.
  • In a minor subplot, McKinnon gets help from controversial figure “Edward Snowden,” who is played by Tom Stourton. You recognize the character Snowden long before you recognize Stourton or his name – and he has 39 acting credits.
  • McKinnon is reported to have said she had a childhood crush on Anderson.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “Although there is an actual light gun arcade game series called Point Blank, the in-game footage and title screen of the game that Audrey is playing during her birthday at the beginning of the movie is from the Nintendo DS version called Point Blank DS.”
  • McKinnon and Kunis worked together on three episodes of TV’s exceptionally crude and exceptionally hilarious “The Family Guy.” McKinnon did three episodes, while Kunis has been a regular with 302 episodes.

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