Fridae

What a difference a year makes. Say you want to make a romcom or a spy caper or a parody of the espionage thriller genre where the intelligence operative in question cracks under the stresses of his job and begins to think he’s a SPY – and starts acting like a spy in the movies, with hilarious consequences. Not too long ago this decade, we would have cast the reigning king Hollywood comedy, Will Ferell and Cameron Diaz as the love interest. And we would have played this caper as a straightforward spoof of the spy genre, complete with a MacGuffin.

But we live in a day and age where Tom Cruise has suddenly manifested a talent for comedy by stealing the show in Tropic Thunder with his Grossman character. Casting him in a spy caper and genre parody allows us to do more with the premise, because he’ll be in fact parodying every action thriller and spy movie he’s ever starred in. And as a bonus, the script can even play it both ways. What if Tom Cruise’s out of control spy isn’t at all insane? What if his crazy conspiracy theory (which involves a MacGuffin, the FBI, and the consortium of arms dealers) is right and his nutty behaviour is totally justified? 

Once you start with a concept as strong as this, there’s very little that could derail the execution of the film. Helming the production is James Mangold, the man behind the 3:10 to Yuma remake and Girl, Interrupted. Mangold stitches together the film’s somewhat generic spy thriller half with its spoof comedy half, and for the most part, balances the two genres well. 

The film is far less interesting when the spy thriller takes over from the spoof comedy, but the screen chemistry and comic interplay between Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz make the funny moments last a long way.