The 355 (2022)

The 355 (2022)

3/10

Starring

Jessica Chastain

Penélope Cruz

Fan Bingbing

Diane Kruger

Lupita Nyong'o

 

Directed by Simon Kinberg

 

I get the idea of wanting to make a female spy-turned-villain flick where the ladies are the heroes. There’s shooting, near misses, jumping off cranes, hanging from balconies, and a big showdown in a dark train tunnel. I get it. But could we at least have a story that makes sense or is worth the time and effort I put into watching this?

We’ve seen countless male-centered movies recycle this same plot repeatedly, and it was already annoying. Now, seeing ladies do the same thing doesn’t make it any less boring. The plot in this story is forgettable, everything feels thrown together, and the directing is poor. The director didn’t tell this story well at all. In fact, they failed to make me feel like the women were doing a good job—even though they saved the world.

The movie also uses the oldest trick in the book: if you don’t see someone die or find their body, they’re not dead. On top of that, there’s that ridiculous trope where lovers betray each other, and when one has the chance to exact revenge, they chicken out. Sure, maybe 10% of people would do that, but the other 90%? They’d take their shot.

Our lead, Mace (Jessica Chastain), is supposed to be a badass. Yet, she does that foolish "chicken out" move, and it results in the deaths of her friends and the loved ones of her newly formed female clique.

Here’s the plot without giving too much away:
A planned drug deal goes bust as we discover it wasn’t a drug deal at all—it was a weapons deal. The officers monitoring the house, waiting for the right moment to bust in, were shocked by what they overheard. The item being sold was a drive that could hack into anything. The officers stormed in when a double-cross failed, and almost everyone died.

One of the officers managed to steal the drive and tried to sell it to a government agency—in this case, the CIA, involving Mace. The CIA brokers a deal, and Mace is sent with Nick (her partner and longtime lover) to retrieve the drive. But things don’t go as planned, and Mace ends up under suspicion. She then reaches out to her British agent friend, Khadijah, to help her retrieve the drive while dealing with a female German operative who’s also after it.

I’m so sick and tired of lazy writing where characters jet from one end of the world to the other chasing bad guys. And bad guys who, for some reason, decide the best way to move things around is by creating an overly complicated web of transactions. It only makes things easier for the good guys to infiltrate, unnecessarily complicating what was supposed to be their simple plan.

The action scenes didn’t make up for the poor writing and directing.