Monday, June 20, 2022

Girl Fight

The 355 (2022) showed up kind of by mistake. I wasn't watching my queue closely enough, and this just bubbled up. I know I said I'm getting tired of female-lead action movies, but here we go again.

CIA operative Jessica Chastain is part of a team staking out a Colombian druglord. It turns out that he's trying to sell a cyber-McGuffin to master criminal Jason Flemyng, when the whole thing goes sideways. DNI agent Edgar Ramirez gets away with the McGuffin. 

Chastain and Sebastian Stan go on a mission in Germany to buy it back, but German agent Diane Kruger swipes the money bag (thinking it was the McGuffin) and everything does sideways again.

So Chastain recruits Lupita Nyong'o and Penelope Cruz to help retrieve the gizmo and/or the money. There's an auction in Shanghai, and Fan Bing Bing shows up to help out. So we've got about 5 women agents from various agencies, working for or against each other, looking for the McGuffin.

The movie is set all over the world - Colombia, Germany, England, Morocco, Shanghai. There are tons of action scenes, with guns and hand-to-hand combat. The stars are the women, all action stars you love (Diane Kruger wasn't familiar, although she played Helen of Troy).

It's definitely not a bad example of this kind of movie. It may even be a good example - an Expendables for women. But it wasn't enough to overcome our ennui over this genre. I do want more, but I want better.

And about the title - the movie gives you no clue. So google it if you care.

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