Review by C.J. Bunce
In the vein of fish-out-of-water comedies like The Man with One Red Shoe and The Man Who Knew Too Little comes the new Amazon MGM Studios movie , now streaming on Prime Video. When a grisled London cop hires a comedy improv actor to lead a trio of fake thugs to infiltrate a local crime syndicate, things go exactly as you’d expect: Poorly. Yes, it’s a farce, but a deftly drawn script by Colin Trevorrow, director Tom Kingsley (Ghosts, Doctor Who), and a strange cast with chemistry somehow make it all work. The comedy beats are very British in the way of independent off kilter flicks of days past (like Waking Ned Devine, Brassed Off, The Full Monty), despite the movie being headlined by American actor Bryce Dallas Howard as Kat, teacher at a local improv club looking to break through with any good acting gig. The British contribution on the acting front includes genre favorites Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom, Ian McShane, with Paddy Considine fresh off his role as a thug in Mob Land.
It all begins with Kat, whose students get an agent before she does, just as her old friends return and point her out as the one yet to achieve her goals. Sean Bean’s older cop Billings has been watching Kat. His plan? For Kat to lead a group of improv actors to infiltrate the local gang headed by Metcalfe (McShane) and his lieutenant Fly (Considine). The job comes with pay, 200 quid each, more than she’s getting as an acting coach. Unfortunately the only actors at the club left to tap are Marlon (Bloom), a method actor known for over-acting and a pizza commercial, and Hugh (Nick Muhammed), a socially challenged accountant who stumbles into the club to gain some confidence.
The plan shouldn’t work. The comedy shouldn’t work. But it does.
The best writing and acting challenge lands on Bloom’s lap. With dozens of major films under his belt, he’s an ace at balancing the serious drama with the melodramatic requirements of his character, often tapping scenes from war or crime movies he’s seen, but not acted in, then over-doing them a few notches. Howard holds the cast together better than any of her acting work since her M. Night Shyamalan movies. Strange romance surfaces between Hugh and Fly’s lieutenant, a stealthy-cool thug named Shosh, played by Ex Machina co-star Sonoya Mizuno, a candidate for the badass women of the year list, only the script doesn’t give her as much action as her Asian martial artist/street vibe deserves.
For genre fans the movie has some interesting behind-the-scenes pairings, including directors known for their Star Wars connections (Howard and Trevorrow), two members of The Fellowship of the Ring of The Lord of the Rings fame (Bean and Bloom), and two actors from the world of Pirates of the Caribbean (Bloom and McShane).
Co-writer Ben Ashenden steps in as a cop on the job to make a name for himself, a David Tennant-inspired straight man with a wannabe sidekick played by another co-writer on the script, Alexander Owen. Owen has some of the best comedy bits, all about enthusiastically saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
It’s light on typical crime movie action but heavy on fun, filled with humorous situations delivered with a light touch. This isn’t the stuff of a gritty Guy Ritchie action comedy, but it doesn’t need to be. Don’t miss for some easy, good fun. It’s streaming now on Prime Video.
