THE 355 REVIEW

 *MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Jessica Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Diane Kruger), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o), and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Penélope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan), who is tracking their every move.  As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the wealth and glamour of Shanghai, the quartet of women will forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world or get them killed.

Since its release, The 355 has been negatively received by critics, who said that its forgettable story was unremarkably told. Although the story is very predictable, including a twist involving a certain character, this didn’t prevent me from enjoying The 355, especially watching an all-female team in action. Because the action genre has been dominated by men, which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just hard for an action film with women in the leads to be as successful. My main worry with The 355 is that, because it will almost certainly disappoint at the box office, studios will think that audiences aren’t interested in watching an action film led by women and stop producing them. It’s not the women that’s the problem, as all five of the leads deliver strong performances, rather it’s just the adequate and unimaginative filmmaking skills by director Simon Kinberg that is the main issue. The 355 is not the best action film but it still needs to succeed at the box office so that there’s still opportunities for better female led action films to be made. Although the response from critics has been overwhelmingly negative, audiences have reacted to it better and said that it works as a standard action film. I think that this is why The 355 is worth a watch.

Another main reason to watch The 355 is for the fierce performances delivered by its talented cast. The standout is Jessica Chastain who portrays Mace as fearless, making her an easy character to root for. Since winning an Oscar for her heartbreaking supporting performance in 12 Years A Slave in 2014, Nyong’o has become known for her roles in blockbuster films such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Black Panther. She also impressed with her performance in Jordan Peele’s riveting thriller, Us. As tech expert, Khadijah, Nyong’o continues to impress and portrays her as smart and uses her savvy technology skills to help the other agents out. Like Chastain’s Mace, Kruger’s Schmidt is brave and determined. At first, Mace and Schmidt work for different agencies and are enemies at first but become allies once they realise they both want the dangerous hard drive destroyed. Cruz delivers an emotional performance as Rivera who isn’t an agent and is a psychologist and doesn’t want to get involved in the dangerous mission but is left with no choice but to help the other agents when her family is threatened. Although she doesn’t appear until towards the end, I think that Bingbing was a welcome addition to the team as Sheng. While I agree that she was underused, I would have liked to seen more of her in a future sequel as she has useful skills and provides the other agents with weapons in the climatic action sequence. Unfortunately, I doubt there will be a sequel which is a shame as the all-female leads all deliver strong performances.

This may be a controversial thing for me to say but it does annoy me that, for example, there have been six Mission: Impossible films, with another two scheduled for release, and nine Fast and Furious films, yet a film like The 355 struggles. While I do enjoy the M:I films, they do regurgitate the same predictable story and are really just an excuse for its leading star, Tom Cruise, to perform crazy stunts. I just want audiences to give The 355 a chance as it’s not as bad as the critics are making it out to be. Personally, I’ve seen worse action films that were still successful at the box office, which is why it’s so disappointing for me to see The 355 fail. 

Like a lot of films, The 355 had its release date delayed from the beginning of last year, due to the vast majority of cinemas being closed. Since its release earlier this month, many have said that The 355 should have been released video on demand which I think is unfair as it’s worth watching on the big screen and provides audiences with two hours of escapism in the form of fast-paced action and a team of fearless females who are determined to save the world.

7/10