The 355 Review

Universal Pictures’ spy-thriller The 355 is the first major cinematic release of 2022. It is also set to be one of the first box-office flops of the year despite its all-star cast.

A special program on a hard drive that can hack any network has disappeared after a raid in Colombia. It appears again when a DNI agent, Luis Rojas (Édgar Ramírez) offers to sell it to the CIA in Paris for $3 million and Mason “Mace” Browne (Jessica Chastain) and Nick Fowler (Sebastian Stan) are sent to retrieve it. When the mission goes wrong four agents from four different agencies are forced to work together before the drive falls into the wrong hands.

There were a number of factors that hindered The 355 at the box office. Spider-man: No Way Home has dominated the box office and crushed all the competition. The rise of the Omnicom Variant has also affected cinema attendance which has resulted in other films having disappointing numbers. However, the biggest issue that affected The 355 was one of its own makings: it wasn’t good. Critics and audiences have given the film negatives and scores.

The 355 was a spy film with a cookie-cutter plot because it revolved around different characters getting a MacGuffin. Alfred Hitchcock did this all the time, so did the Mission Impossible films. The plot of The 355 had a lot of similarities to the 2019 reboot of Charlie’s Angels because both were spy films focused on an all-female team which had them trying to find a technological MacGuffin, had a member of the group that was new to fieldwork, and both even shared some plot points.

The 355 was a film that had a hackney screenplay. Plot points and twists could be seen from miles away and there were twists that were ridiculous, especially when the film went to Shanghai. This silliness stood in contrast to the po-faced approach, and it had the adverse effect of making the twists more laughable and illogical.

An action-thriller with a generic plot can be forgivable if it had some well-made action sequences. However, The 355 disappoints on this front. The film has promoted itself as being from the studio that made Jason Bourne which was a sign of desperation because it was a tenuous link and the fifth Bourne film which was the weakest in that series. Like the Bourne films, The 355 attempted a similar style of action by using close-ups, shaky cam, and quick cuts. This style of action has fallen out of fashion and The 355 manages to make a quick and kinetic approach seem lethargic.

There were some decent action beats. Diane Kruger acted like the female version of Daniel Craig’s James Bond. She had a fight with Jessica Chastain in a fish market and drove a front loader like Bond in Casino Royale. Fan Bingbing briefly got to show off some of her martial arts skills during the film’s climax.

The 355 did have an incredible cast. There were two Oscar winners in the form of Lupita Nyong’o and Penélope Cruz, an Oscar nominee through Chastain and the five main cast members are stars in their respective nations. The filmmakers did attempt to give The 355 some character through the character dynamics and their personal situations. The most obvious way this was done was through the characters’ personal relationships and how their profession affects them. Chastain’s Mace and Kruger’s Marie were professional spies which meant they had no friends or family beyond their agencies, whilst Nyong’o’s Khadijah had retired from MI6 and was in a committed relationship. Cruz’s character wasn’t even a field agent and had a husband and two children at home.

Kruger was the most interesting character because she was a loose cannon and a loner who couldn’t trust anyone. She had been demoted and suspected of being a double agent, just like James Bond. Kruger’s character was a badass and deserved to be in a better film. Despite Mace and Marie disliking each other they had a lot in common. James Bond was even referenced in the film because one of the characters mentioned that Bond was perpetually alone (a point I made in my own article) and the options for the characters were being agents and alone or leave so they can have a family.

Cruz was the weak link in the character. She was a psychiatrist who was thrust into the world of espionage. So, Cruz’s role was her seemingly being panicked, saying ‘I can’t do this,’ or wanting to go back to her family. It was irritating when she was surrounded by the more capable women.

The 355 was a poor and forgettable spy-thriller. They were some hilarious bad and lazy writing at times, but it was a film that was too serious for its own good.