Not What I Expected

Is it me or does every character now played by SNL's Kate McKinnon sound like Hillary Clinton?  While a gifted and frequently amusing actress, McKinnon has pretty much fallen into a trap from which she might not ultimately escape.  Unless, of course, she makes a career out of exclusively playing Hillary in the movies.

Actually, if she had chosen that route with "The Spy Who Dumped Me," the movie might have worked.  Instead, you wind up with a film that is an awkward blend of gratuitous violence and comedy.  Trust me when I tell you that there's a lot more of the former and a lot less of the latter.  Director Susanna Fogel needed to manage a tricky tightrope of action and laughs.   She fails miserably.

"The Spy Who Dumped Me" is about two dimwit Los Angeles girls, played by Mila Kunis (Mrs. Ashton Kutcher) and the aforementioned McKinnon, who get sucked into some worldwide spy shenanigans when Kunis' CIA operative boyfriend (Justin Theroux---the former Mr. Jennifer Aniston) gets gunned down in their apartment.   PS, he had just sent Kunis a break-up text message.  Hence, the somewhat clever play on a James Bond movie title.  

Well, his dying words trigger an adventure that takes them to Prague and Paris and Vienna and Berlin.  Wherever they go, trouble and major shoot outs seem to follow as they do battle with villains all over the world, including a murderous take on gymnast Olga Korbut.  In between all the bloodshed, we are treated to some one-liners from McKinnon's self-involved idiot of a character.  The only trouble is that the stuff McKinnon is given to say is clearly C material.  She is supposed to bring the comedy but somebody forgot to give her a basket to carry them in.

Don't get me wrong.  I did chuckle a bit throughout the movie.  But chuckles are not guffaws and they clearly weren't plentiful.  And you painfully wait for McKinnon to catch fire and she never does.   It's like going to watch Clayton Kershaw pitch and he spends the whole game throwing nothing but change-ups. Yawn.  The lack of humor is not Kate's fault.  But her gags are relegated to some very gross jokes about penises and that goes out of style very quickly.  The film never gets to using all four comedic cylinders and that's a fatal blow.  Even cameo appearances by the always welcome Jane Curtin and the frequently amusing Paul Reiser as McKinnon's parents fall flat.  Just when you want to laugh, somebody gets brutally murdered.   And the audience is the ultimate victim.

Now, I go back to the notion that McKinnon starring in this movie as Hillary Clinton.   That would have guaranteed a lot of laughs.  Think of Hillary chasing deadly CIA operatives all over the world trying to prove that Donald Trump hacked the last election.  And Hillary making all those dick jokes.   I would still be doubled over in hilarity a week later.

But that would be unfair to McKinnon who really does have some talents beyond her impersonation of Hillary.  But the line between these portrayals is getting dimmer and dimmer.   And it will ultimately fade away completely if filmmakers don't give her some good comedy to play up on the big screen.  

Yep, "The Spy Who Dumped Me" was not what I expected.  In a bad way.

LEN'S RATING:  Two-and-a-half stars.

Dinner last night:  Leftover sausage and peppers.