This international spy action thriller has an amazing cast – Chastain, Nyong'o, Kruger, Cruz and Bingbing – and the film is at its best when they’re all on screen together, but unfortunately, the uninspired and predictable script doesn’t do them any justice.

Premise: When US CIA agent Mace (Jessica Chastain) has an operation in Paris disrupted by German BND agent Marie Schmidt (Diane Kruger), a dangerous decryption device is released into the cyber-terrorist black market. Mace’s only chance of recovering the device may be to work with a retired British MI6 cyber-security expert (Lupita Nyong'o) and a psychologist working for Columbia’s DNI (Penélope Cruz) – but they’re not the only ones after the device.

Review:

Starting with the positives, The 355 has a great cast list. Jessica Chastain leads the film, and while her character (Mason "Mace" Browne) may be fairly straightforward, Chastain is always watchable and she always makes the most of the material she’s given. It’s also great to see Diane Kruger get so much to do in this, and even if her backstory is a little cliched, she still gives it her all. Lupita Nyong'o arguably gets the most to do – in terms of emotional range, if not action scenes – and her chameleonic abilities means that this character feels very different from any of the others I’ve seen her play. Finally, Penélope Cruz gets to play a very different character from the rest of the cast, portraying the only non-agent among the ensemble.

The film works best when the ensemble cast are all on screen together, which frustratingly doesn’t happen until about the halfway point. When they do come together, the majority of the film’s most enjoyable scenes are based around the teammates’ interactions, rather than any plot-focused developments. The main cast are also ably supported by several engaging actors in the smaller parts, including Sebastian Stan as Mace’s fellow CIA officer, Édgar Ramírez as a rogue DNI agent, and Fan Bingbing as a mysterious shadowy figure.

“…the film’s biggest problem by far is its script…”

The film’s action sequences are decent, if a little pedestrian. The direction of some of the earlier set-pieces (including an armed raid, a foot chase through Paris, and a sequence at the docks) felt a little by-the-numbers, and a later fight sequence involving Jessica Chastain didn’t show off the fight choreography as well as I suspect it should have done. Whether the issue here was second-time director Simon Kinberg’s lack of experience at directing action (although I seem to remember he did a decent enough job directing the action in X-Men: Dark Phoenix), or whether the fault lies with the Second Unit, I can’t say. That said, the action sequence set in Morocco and the film’s climatic shootout were a bit more impressive.

The film’s biggest problem by far, however, is its script. Being generous, the storyline is an overly familiar one involving a missing gadget that needs to be recovered before it falls into the wrong hands. Being less generous, you could argue that the plot contrivances used first to pit the main characters against each other, and then to bring them together, lack credibility. There are also several plot developments that made no sense to me at all, to the extent that I wondered if there were deleted scenes that would explain how certain characters knew certain bits of information, or what happened to certain things/people that the film simply seemed to forget about when it was convenient for the drama.

“…anyone can see the plot twists coming a mile off…”

Perhaps most disappointing was the fact that the script clearly wanted to throw in some unexpected twists, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with the genre would see them coming a mile off. I like to be surprised when watching movies, and so unless I’m watching something like a whodunnit, I consciously disengage the problem-solving part of my brain because I don’t like trying to second guess what’s coming – but even when I was actively trying not to spot the twists coming, they were so painfully obvious that not a single one of the film’s main twists came as a surprise to me. And don’t get me started on the final epilogue, which I still think contains so many unexplained plot holes that the entire dénouement makes no sense.

Given that, in my view, all of the film’s problems are solely down to its poor script, I looked up what other movies had been written by this film’s writer, Theresa Rebeck. When I saw that Theresa Rebeck had been one of the co-writers of the story for Halle Berry’s truly terrible 2004 Catwoman movie, the pieces began to fall into place. The end result, in terms of female-led spy thrillers, is that The 355 is less enjoyable than the 2019 Charlies Angels, less fun than The Spy Who Dumped Me, and less clever, less action-packed and less engaging than the excellent Atomic Blonde.

“…a cast of this calibre deserved a far better script…”

All in all, the film isn’t unenjoyable or unwatchable – the cast alone are enough to keep it entertaining and to make it worth a couple of hours of your time. But a cast of this calibre deserved a far better script, and I hope this lacklustre offering doesn’t harm the prospects of other female-led action thrillers getting greenlit. In fact, with a cast this good, I’d be happy to see The 355 Part II in due course … just with a different writer and a better script next time.