Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The 355’ on VOD, a By-the-Numbers Girl Power Action Flick Anchored by Jessica Chastain

While making X-Men: Dark Phoenix, star Jessica Chastain and director Simon Kinberg spitballed an idea for a female-fronted action/spy film, and the result is The 355, currently on VOD before its planned Peacock debut. The film is notable for surrounding Chastain with talent: Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, Penelope Cruz and Fan Bingbing, with Sebastian Stan as the token male who’s notable, but not notable enough to get his name on the poster. Theatrically, it was a dud, snowed under by Spider-Man hoopla and a sense that it wasn’t about to reinvent the modern action picture. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not worth a stream at home, right? Mmmmaybe.

THE 355: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Subtitle: 150 MILES SOUTH OF BOGOTA, COLOMBIA. Since no character in the opening scene is even remotely important, let me introduce you to the MacGuffin, a “cyber key,” a small plastic rectangle about the size of a Nokia phone circa 2008. It is deadlier than a nuclear bomb strapped to an even bigger nuclear bomb. Plug it into a computer, and it can virus, trojan and/or worm its way into any system and pull it down like pants in a porno. See that plane in the air? Tap click click tap, kaboom, it explodes. Some shit goes down and the recognizable actor in the room, Edgar Ramirez, makes off with the doohickey. Soon enough, the world’s many spy agencies will be alerted to the existence of the whatsit, so the movie can thunder far-flung locales across the bottom of the screen as drones hover over cities, filming cities doing city things like standing there, emitting light and making honking noises.

Subtitle: CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY VIRGINIA, as opposed to what, the CIA headquarters in Springfield, Kentucky? We meet agent Mace, short for Mason Browne (Chastain), as she wallops a sparring partner. She’s best pals with her colleague Nick (Stan), except that they fall into bed with each other before they pose as a tourist couple in the city where they track the doohickey, PARIS, FRANCE, as opposed to Paris, Texas, because it’s important to differentiate these things, although the Eiffel Tower is usually a giveaway. They’re not the only ones sniffing out the thingamajig, as they have a run-in with Bundesnachrichtendienst agent Marie Schmidt (Kruger), who predictably exclaims “Scheisse!” when she doesn’t acquire the doodad, and finds herself in scenes set in BERLIN, GERMANY, which, to be absolutely clear, is not Berlin, New Brunswick.

Mace can’t do this herself, so she calls her associate Khadijah Adiyeme (Nyong’o), an MI6 agent in LONDON, ENGLAND, not London, Seychelles. The chase for the thingy also implicates Colombian National Intelligence Directorate agent Graciela Rivera (Cruz), who isn’t a bang-bang run-and-gun type, but a psychologist who, one can only assume, offers psychotherapy on the fly as her fellow agents leap out of helicopters and such. THAT sounds like a good movie: “Tell me about your” (ducks RPG) “relationship with your father.” (Explosion in the background)

Anyhow. Mace, Marie, Khadijah and Graciela trace the artilugio to MARRAKESH, MOROCCO, which definitely isn’t Marrakesh, Mississippi, because this Marrakesh is very tan and sun-baked. But we haven’t fully assembled the Super Friends yet – there’s also Chinese Ministry of State Security agent Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing), who’s in SHANGHAI, CHINA, and I know we’re not all geography majors here, but come the f— on. Throughout all this racking-up of frequent flier miles, there are several instances where the bad guys have opportunities to ruthlessly kill key characters in order to enact their evil plans, but don’t, undermining that very ruthlessness for the sake of the movie not reaching a conclusion too soon, and also being a huge bummer. Without giving away too much, let’s just say there’s an emphasis on the women out-punching and -shooting the antagonists instead of outwitting them, so you know what you’re getting into here.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The 355 – named after a real-life American Revolution-era code word for a still-unnamed female spy – takes the convoluted shenanigans of the Bourne and Mission: Impossible films, and girl-ifies them, a la Ocean’s 8 or maybe Widows.

Performance Worth Watching: The barely written characters don’t give this cast much meat to gnaw off the bone here – too bad, because Nyong’o and Chastain are among the best at what they do, and this movie gives them not much to do beyond the shooting and whatnot, and a scene or two of ineffective emotional purging. So let’s just say Chastain’s attempt to reinvent herself as an action star (see also: the duds Ava and her brief X-Men stint) hasn’t quite taken flight yet.

Memorable Dialogue: Mace and Khadijah discuss the latter’s attempt to have a life outside spy shit, like, with an S.O. and everything:

Mace: That’s real love, huh?

Khadijah: That’s real life, Mace.

Mace: James Bond never has to deal with real life.

Khadijah: James Bond always ends up alone.

Sex and Skin: Only morning-after snuggles.

Our Take: The 355 is overplotted but underwritten, a globetrotting chase flick with plenty of halfway-decent action sequences but minimal reasons for us to care about the characters’ fates. Sure, Khadijah has a life partner and Graciela has children, so cue the requisite scene in which the bad guys point guns at them – a scene so boilerplate, we don’t really get all that upset, since we’re being exploited for our base emotional concerns. That exploitation extends to the overall conflict, where nefarious agents fight over the ability to destroy billions of lives while on the couch, mindlessly scrolling their phone as Emily in Paris autoplays in front of them. I shrug, and argue that Thanos destroying half the known Marvel Universe upped the ante for mega-scale movie conflicts. Maybe it’s time for movies to generate suspense from situations that are fathomably smaller-scale?

There’s much to be said for action films that are more style than story – see John Wick or Mad Max: Fury Road, and feel the invigoration of the form. Kinberg dials up a few rock-solid moments that less demanding audiences may find perfectly suitable for an evening of light escapism. But otherwise, this is a switchbackin’, doublecrossin’, rug-pullin’, plot-holin’ story that does exactly what we expect it to: confound us with its needless complications (leave this M.O. for M:I, I say), take a passing glance at a feminist issue (can women be kickass world-saving do-gooders and have personal lives? Answer: It depends!) and force a cheer for the assemblage of a no-dudes-allowed superagent team (GROSB: Get Rid Of Slimy Boys). Color me underwhelmed.

Our Call: I’m waffling here. The 355 doesn’t really come close to meeting its potential, so SKIP IT. But if you’re not ponying up 20 bucks, it’s possibly an entirely passable yeah-sure-why-not kind of watch.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.

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