Film Review: sloppy writing mars a superb cast in The 355 – Irish Examiner

Technology is the new drug, according to The 355 (12A), which opens with a raid on a Colombian crime kingpin that yields a cyber key capable of unlocking the entire internet.

When the key goes on the international market, for sale to the highest bidder, CIA agent Mace (Jessica Chastain) heads for Paris to intercept the deal, where she quickly finds herself tangling with Marie (Diane Kruger) of the German BND, Khadijah (Lupita Nyongo) from MI6 and Graciela (Penelope Cruz) from the Mexican Intelligence Directorate.

Can these four formidable women stop their in-fighting long enough to save the world from World War III?

A globe-trotting yarn that takes us from Paris to Marrakesh and on to Shanghai, The 355 is a spy thriller with lashings of style and very little substance: screenwriters Theresa Rebeck, Bek Smith and Simon Kinberg (who also directs) take a pretty cavalier approach to plot, eschewing such irrelevant details as, for example, who might be funding the jets, jewellery and couture that are essential to the quartets rogue pursuit of the malevolent mastermind desperate to get his hands on the cyber key.

No clich goes unturned in the attempt to match the Bond movies for espionage hi-jinks, but while 007 is very much the original upon which The 355 is modelled, poor old James is here derided for being out of touch with the real world (one wonders, of course, how long Bond would have lasted had he made a habit of giving his foes 10 seconds to put their guns down, as Marie does here).

The four leads certainly prove themselves deadlier than the male during the frequent eruptions of violence; otherwise the sloppy writing is a waste of a superb cast.

(cinema release)

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Film Review: sloppy writing mars a superb cast in The 355 - Irish Examiner