The Spy Who Dumped Me

''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' is a 2018 American action spy spoof comedy film directed by Susanna Fogel and co-written by Fogel and David Iserson. The film stars Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux, Sam Heughan, Hasan Minhaj, and Gillian Anderson and follows two best friends who are chased by assassins through Europe after one of their ex-boyfriends turns out to be a CIA agent. The film was released in the United States on August 3, 2018, by Lionsgate and grossed more than $75 million, while receiving mixed reviews from critics, who questioned the film's intended genre and tone but praised the performances.

Plot

In Los Angeles, cashier Audrey Stockman spends her birthday upset after being dumped, via text, by her boyfriend Drew. Her best friend and roommate, Morgan, convinces her to burn Drew's things and sends him a text as a heads up. Unbeknownst to Audrey, Drew is a government agent being pursued by men trying to kill him. He promises to return and asks Audrey not to burn his things in the meantime.

At her job, Audrey flirts with a man who asks her to walk him to his car. She is forced into a van. Inside, the man identifies himself as Sebastian Henshaw and that Drew works for the C.I.A. and has gone missing. Audrey claims not to have heard from Drew and is allowed to go home. Drew shows up to retrieve his possessions, including a fantasy football trophy. People begin shooting at them and Drew tells Audrey that, if anything happens to him, she must go to a certain café in Vienna and turn over the trophy to his contact. Drew is then apparently murdered by a man Morgan had previously met at the bar, who is then pushed off the balcony by Morgan.

Morgan convinces Audrey to go to Vienna. At the café, Sebastian appears and demands the trophy at gunpoint. Audrey reluctantly hands it over before the entire café is attacked. Audrey and Morgan flee, chased by men on motorcycles. Audrey reveals that she still has Drew's trophy since she switched it with one of several decoys they purchased. They board a train to Prague and discover that the trophy contains a USB flash drive. Morgan calls her parents, who tell her they can stay in Prague with Roger, a family friend.

Audrey and Morgan make it to the apartment, but quickly realize that "Roger" is actually a spy who has killed the real Roger and drugged the two ladies. Audrey tries to get Morgan to swallow the flash drive. When that fails, Audrey tells their captors that she flushed it down the toilet.

The ladies wake up in an abandoned gymnastics training facility, about to be tortured by Nadejda, a Russian gymnast/model/assassin trained by an older couple who had previously masqueraded as Drew's parents. Audrey and Morgan are rescued by Sebastian, who defied orders to save them. He brings them to meet his boss in Paris, where they once again tell the C.I.A. and MI6 that the drive was flushed. The women are given tickets back to America, and Sebastian is placed on leave.

Driving back to the airport, Sebastian explains that Drew's "parents" are actually notorious criminals; Drew was discreetly negotiating with them to sell the flash drive, and Audrey came along as part of his cover. Audrey confesses that she hid the drive in her vagina. When Sebastian is unable to decrypt the information, Morgan calls Edward Snowden - who had a crush on her in summer camp - and he helps them hack the drive.

The trio travel to a hostel in Amsterdam, where they are attacked by Sebastian's C.I.A. partner Duffer, who wants to sell the drive himself. They are rescued by their hostel roommate, who thinks they are being robbed and body slams Duffer to his death. Audrey answers Duffer's phone when it rings and agrees to sell the drive at a private party in Berlin. To get into the party, Audrey and Sebastian disguise themselves as the Canadian ambassador and his wife, while Morgan pretends to be a member of Cirque du Soleil, the entertainment. Sebastian is attacked and Morgan is confronted by Nadejda on an acrobat swing, eventually killing her by throwing her onto the nearby set. Meanwhile, Audrey goes to meet her mysterious contact and finds Drew, still alive. Drew acts suspiciously and goes through her purse to find the flash drive. Sebastian arrives, being held hostage by Drew's "parents". After a standoff, Drew's "parents" are shot, leaving Sebastian and Drew, who accuse each other of trying to hurt Audrey. Drew then shoots Sebastian, and Audrey pretends to be glad before grabbing Drew's gun. After Drew tries to attack Audrey, Audrey kicks him in the crotch, then he falls to the ground when Morgan throws a cannonball at him. Drew is arrested, and Audrey, Morgan, and Sebastian walk away.

Sebastian later gives Morgan his untraceable phone so she can call her parents to tell them she is alive. While on the phone, Morgan receives a call from Sebastian's boss telling him he is off suspension. Morgan begs her for a job as a spy. Meanwhile, Sebastian and Audrey share a kiss.

A year later, while celebrating Audrey's birthday in Tokyo, her party is revealed to be ruse. Audrey and Morgan are there on assignment with Sebastian to stop a group of Japanese Yakuza gangsters.

Cast

* Mila Kunis as Audrey Stockman
* Kate McKinnon as Morgan Freeman
* Sam Heughan as Sebastian Henshaw
* Justin Theroux as Drew Thayer
* Gillian Anderson as Wendy
* Hasan Minhaj as Duffer
* Ivanna Sakhno as Nadejda
* Fred Melamed as Roger
* Jane Curtin as Carol Freeman
* Paul Reiser as Arnie Freeman
* Lolly Adefope as Tess Baker-Tonetti
* Kev Adams as Bitteauto Driver Lukas
* Olafur Darri Olafsson as Finnish Backpacker
* Tom Stourton as Edward Snowden
* James Fleet as Tom
* Carolyn Pickles as Marsha
* Mirjam Novak as Verne

Production

Principal photography began in Budapest, Hungary in July 2017. Filming also took place in Amsterdam that September, wrapping the same month.

Release

''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' premiered at Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles on July 25, 2018. The film was originally scheduled to be released on July 6, 2018, but after "a phenomenal test screening" it was pushed back a month to August 3, 2018, in order to avoid a crowded July frame.

Home media

''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 30, 2018, by Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

Reception

Box office

''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' grossed $33.6 million in the United States and Canada, as well as $41.7 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $75.3 million, against a production budget of $40 million.

In the United States and Canada, ''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' was released alongside '' Christopher Robin'', ''The Darkest Minds'' and '' Death of a Nation: Can We Save America a Second Time?'', and was projected to gross $10–15 million from 3,111 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $5 million on its first day, including $950,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $12.4 million, finishing third at the box office, behind holdover '' Mission: Impossible – Fallout'' and ''Christopher Robin''. It fell 45% to $6.6 million in its second weekend, finishing sixth.

Critical response

At the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 49% based on 208 reviews, with an average rating of 5.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' isn't the funniest or most inventive spy comedy, but Kate McKinnon remains as compulsively watchable as ever". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 52 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it 3 out of 5 stars.

''Variety''s Owen Gleiberman praised McKinnon's performance but criticized the film for favoring violence over comedy, writing, "''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' is no debacle, but it's an over-the-top and weirdly combustible entertainment, a movie that can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a light comedy caper or a top-heavy exercise in B-movie mega-violence." Barbara VanDenburgh of ''The Arizona Republic'' called the film "a tonally incongruous, plodding and graphically violent comedy" and gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, saying: "Perhaps the problem isn't one of too little ambition, but of too much. ''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' is, after all, trying earnestly to be about half a dozen different things: a buddy comedy, a spy drama, a raunch fest, a thrilling action film. It's just that it doesn't have the focus to do any of those things particularly well". ''Rolling Stone''s Peter Travers criticized the film, rating it 2 out of 5 stars. He stated that the film "spends way too much time on car chases, shootouts, knife fights and R-rated violence that doesn't square with the film's comic agenda" and also commented that "''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' isn't just painfully unfunny—it criminally wastes the comic talents of Kate McKinnon".

Richard Brody of ''The New Yorker'' praised the film, stating, "Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon riff gleefully in the ample and precise framework of Susanna Fogel's effervescent action comedy", while Justin Chang of the ''Los Angeles Times'' also gave it a positive review, writing, "''The Spy Who Dumped Me'' sa fast, funny Europe-trotting buddy caper". Johnny Oleksinski of ''The New York Post'' opined it was nice to see McKinnon used properly in a film, and that Kunis was the ideal straight woman, calling the two a smart match.

Accolades

References

External links

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2010s action comedy films
2010s black comedy films
2010s buddy films
2010s spy films
American action comedy films
American black comedy films
American female buddy films
American spy films
Buddy comedy films
Films set in Amsterdam
Films set in Berlin
Films set in Lithuania
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in Paris
Films set in Prague
Films set in Vienna
Films shot in Amsterdam
Films shot in Atlanta
Films shot in Berlin
Films shot in Budapest
Films shot in Prague
Films shot in Vienna
Imagine Entertainment films
Lionsgate films
Spy comedy films
Cultural depictions of Edward Snowden