"The Spy Who Dumped Me" doesn't know what it wants to be - a buddy road comedy, a fish-out-of-water spy spoof or a romantic dramedy so it ends up being a little of each of these. The best thing about this movie is the chemistry between its leads, Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon. A rough breakup is the catalyst for everything that happens and the script, cowritten by director Susanna Fogel and David Iserson, doesn't always make sense. Kunis plays Audrey, the dumpee, who works as a cashier at an organic food store. The guy who ditched her - by text no less - is Justin Theroux's Drew. We meet him in the movie's opening scene, a gritty shootout in Lithuania that suggest he's not just your average boyfriend. Drew, unbeknownst to Audrey, is in the CIA. She figures it out when he comes to Los Angeles and tries to make up with her, but dies from a bullet wound just before he gives her a mission: To bring a special secret thingamajig to an operative who will meet her in a cafe in Vienna. A freaked out Audrey wants nothing to do with this, but her best friend Morgan (McKinnon) convinces her to go forward. The ensuing caper takes the two from Los Angeles to Vienna, then to Paris, Prague and Berlin. Audrey gets to see Europe and tangle with a Russian gymnast-assassin (Ivanna Sakhno) and a handsome spy (Sam Heughan) who may or may not be working for the other side.
There's lots of action, replete with zig-zagging chase scenes and chaotic pandemonium that's not always played for laughs. But between the adventure and surprising amount of violence, it's a comedy in which Kunis and McKinnon trade goofball best-friend wisecracks. Kunis is a perfect foil for the more manic McKinnon, with her calm reactions and 'You've got to be kidding me' eyes. Nonetheless, it's tough to sustain a story line this thin for two hours and the movie runs out of steam at the two-thirds mark. "The Spy Who Dumped Me" mashes several genres together and the resulting mix is just okay.
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