What makes Melissa McCarthy’s such an effective comedienne is her two-pronged attack where getting laughs are concerned.  One the one hand, she can be the sweet, not-so-confident bumbler who never met a social situation she couldn’t botch, whose good intentions fail to hide the fact that she’s the sort of woman who’ll always be a step or three behind the crowd.  Then there’s the berserker persona, the one in which her foul mouth leaves no survivors, taking a scorched earth approach towards leaving no one in her wake, destroying offenders and innocents alike with insults that would make a sailor blush.
The genius of Paul Feig’s Spy is that it allows McCarthy to utilize both of these comedic weapons, as her character, low-level CIA agent Susan Cooper, starts out as a wallflower, only to transform into a no-holds-barred killing machine, adept at hand-to-hand combat and with firearms, yet whose greatest weapon may be her mouth.  Ensconced in a rat infested bunker where she follows the movements of her partner, superspy Bradley Fine (Jude Law) and provides vital intelligence directly to him so that he can survive in the field, Cooper knows she’s being underutilized yet is unsure how to break out of her professional rut.  She gets the chance when Fine goes missing and she volunteers to go out to find him, as well as arms-dealer Rayana Boyanov (Rose Byrne), his last known contact. Her reasoning, that no one would ever expect her to be a lethal weapon, has a certain logic to it and director Crocker (Allison Janney) sends her to France, despite many misgivings.
Feig’s film is a spot-on parody of the Bond films from its outlandish plot, lush score, sexually overwrought opening credits and third-act plot twists.  Much of the fun comes from anticipating the conventions that are going to be skewered, none better than when Cooper goes to be outfitted with custom weapons to take into the field, only to have it turn in to the most humiliating of experiences.  I haven’t laughed at another so hard or long this year and McCarthy sells it brilliantly.  Equally enjoyable is seeing Law and action icon Jason Statham lampoon their images, the former overplaying the suavity to great effect, the latter delivering some effective slapstick while exaggerating his deadly action feats.
Unfortunately, like the Bond films Spy overstays its welcome a bit, a dangerous tactic for any comedy as sustaining laughs is never an easy feat. Â However, McCarthy saves the day and proves that she can carry a film on her own, as long as Feig or someone else is wise enough to use every weapon in her comic arsenal.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2015.
