Movie Review: The 355 (2022)

As word spreads throughout the global intelligence community, CIA agent Mason “Mace” Browne (Jessica Chastain) and her partner/lover Nick (Sebastian Stan) head off to Paris to broker a deal with the mercenary. But, as luck would have it, German agent Marie (Diane Kruger) foils the meeting, and after a lot of running and punching, the chip is lost again, and Nick is killed.

From there, The 355 hones in on Mace avenging Nick’s death. She goes rogue and secretly recruits her former MI6 computer expert, Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o), to track down its location. Meanwhile, Luis is in deep trouble, and his superiors send agency psychologist Graciela (Penélope Cruz) to talk him into turning himself in. But, of course, everything goes wrong, more people die, and the world will soon be brought to its knee. The four women — Mace, Marie, Khadijah, and Graciela — realize they are after the same thing for the same reason, so they team up and uncover a greater conspiracy involving the fifth member, Lin (Bingbing Fan).

What’s up with the all-female spy team? It is the main thing everyone is thinking while watching the film. The woke will praise it, and the un-woke will throw a hissy-fit. Ironically, most of the praise and criticism will be laid without ever seeing it — which is unfair on both sides. As much as this is an all-female spy movie, it goes out of its way not to draw attention to the conceit. Instead, the way the story plays out, the team is formed out of necessity, happening organically. Case in point, Graciela is the “civilian” of the team. She’s a psychologist with absolutely no field training. Yet, reluctantly, her skills come into play when she’s forced into an undercover role.

I was pleasantly entertained watching these chicks wheel around and elbow men in the throat, especially Kruger. Each one holds the screen magnificently, and that they all signed on to this speaks volumes about the paucity of scripts out there for women, even Oscar nominees.

Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong'o, Penélope Cruz and Fan Bingbing all produce, all of them give enjoyable performances and never became uninteresting, irritating or whatever to me. They are the film's major plus. I'm struggling for other positives, cinematography at a push?

Unfortunately, I came away from watching feeling underwhelmed. The second half really drags, not helped by an extremely lame 'twist'. The first half isn't perfect but does hold potential, once the main bunch eventually team up it's more interesting. The editing is a little iffy, too.

In the current trend for kickass women in action films, this has to be the worst. Those trying to blame the poor performance of The 355 on the pandemic really need to stop. No Way Home utterly destroys such a laughable claim.

It’s a 5/10 for me.