Spy (15)

four stars

Dir: Paul Feig

With: Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Jason Statham

Runtime: 120 minutes

PAUL Feig is notable for having taken a whack at one of cinema's many glass ceilings with Bridesmaids, a comedy that dared to show that women could be funny and make money at the box office. He did the same with The Heat (Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock as a dysfunctional Cagney and Lacey) and now he has a full set of winning comedies with Spy. And all this despite being a mere man. You go, girl! Sorry, guy.

Spy comes in the long traditions of espionage spoofs, and while a foppish Englishman features (Jude Law as silky smooth agent Bradley Fine), Feig changes the rules by making the main characters women. Not just any women but middle-aged women of all non-model shapes and sizes, the kind usually treated as invisible, both in life and on screen. Besides McCarthy (becoming something of a Feig muse), there is Miranda Hart, The West Wing's Allison Janney, and Rose Byrne (another of the original Bridesmaids).

Susan Cooper (McCarthy) is a CIA agent. Sounds glamorous - and one should point out here that this is the "comedy" CIA we are dealing with here, not the nasty, extraordinary rendition CIA - but her function is to stay at head office, watching over Agent Fine (Law) as he does the ritzy stuff overseas. He is fond of old "Coop", but she is in love with him, a fact only known to her best friend Hart. It is never explained why the CIA should be employing so many Brits, but one cannot have everything. It is relief enough that Law keeps his own accent and does not attempt another Black Sea, cod-Scottish abomination.

When Fine runs into trouble, agency boss Allison Janney needs a new face to go into the field and find a nuclear bomb about to be sold to the highest bidder by the unscrupulous Rayna Boyanov (Byrne). Step forward Cooper, much to the horror of fellow agent Rick Ford (Jason Statham, another Brit). Statham is a comedy revelation, taking the tough-guy persona from Crank and Transporter and taking a right royal rise out of it. Stupendously foul-mouthed - the entire film is not shy of the F-word - Ford is definitely more Jacques Clouseau than Jason Bourne.

Like the rest of the male cast, including Bobby Cannavale, Statham takes on a secondary, supporting role. He is there to drive the plot forward while the women do the comedy heavy-lifting. They not only execute the physical stuff, but most importantly they enjoy the best of the one-liners.

Feig is not always convincing as an action director, with some of the scenes overlong and predictable, but as a writer of genuinely funny one liners he is one of the best working in Hollywood today. Though it was Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumulo who wrote Bridesmaids, he is clearly a kindred spirit. In Spy, he writes superbly for women, laughing with them at the tired old assumptions usually made (the agency is determined to give Cooper a false identity as a crazy cat lady, for example), rather than at them. Perhaps I was too busy laughing, but I don't recall in the entire film someone making a fat joke about McCarthy.

Which is not to say the humour cannot be vicious at times, but it is women on the giving and receiving ends. McCarthy plays a blinder as a mousy agent put to the test. In the past, when given too much free rein, she has sometimes proven to be too much of a good thing. Here, though, her performance is focused, sharp and very funny. Ditto Rose Byrne as Rayna. A mention should go, too, to the ever wonderful Peter Serafinowicz who turns up as an Italian agent.

Even when the picture overstays its welcome by a good 20 minutes, such are the smiles generated one is sorry to see Spy go. When was the last time anyone said that of a comedy? Oh yes, Bridesmaids. You do not need to be an intelligence officer to spy a sequel ahead for this one.