Film Review: The 355

The number “355” in the title of the film refers to the codename for the first female spy who was sent on a mission by George Washington during the American Revolution. It’s a largely forgotten part of espionage history and unfortunately, this only gets referenced once in the film and then is largely ignored, instead of the title The 355 is used as the moniker for the group of international female spies. So as you can expect The 355 is an international espionage thriller with a lot of emphasis on the words “espionage” and “thriller”. The film could be seen as something that could possibly rival Jason Bourne and James Bond at the box office. The filmmaking team behind the camera is also impressive with Simon Kinberg, a producer turned director who has worked on all the X-Men films, and Jessica Chastain, playing one of the lead roles and also producing the film, teaming up to bring the concept to life.

Joining Chastain is a very diverse cast that includes Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, Fan Bingbing and Penélope Cruz. It helps that this cast all have some knowledge of how big blockbuster films work with many of them working on films in the Star Wars, Marvel and Pirates of the Caribbean films. Joining them is Edgar Ramirez, previously seen in last year’s Jungle Cruise, and Sebastian Stan, who plays the Winter Soldier in the MCU, both of whom are fantastic in their roles in the film. The story brings together female agents working for the German government, the Chinese government, the British government and the American government. What brings them together is a device that can hack into any electronic device on the planet.

The problem with The 355 is that it doesn’t offer anything new or different to the genre, with a lot of elements borrowed from other films. The shaky and kinetic camera moves from Jason Bourne are here, and the grittiness and world-weariness of Casino Royale is also noticeable in a few key sequences. There is also a pacing issue with the story spending less time with the action and more focused on the thriller aspect, which shouldn’t be a problem but the film can’t decide whether it wants to be an action or a thriller, and it doesn’t balance those genre’s very well.

It sounds like there’s a lot of flaws, but there are some great aspects to the film. Each of the main characters has an important role to play and the stakes are raised after we learn each of them has something personal to lose. Unfortunately, this is the only highlight of the film. There’s plenty of globetrotting, a fun cameo of a lesser-known British actor playing the bad guy, and some quippy dialogue between the spy antics. The 355 should be sold on more than the acting alone, and if this was a film based of a Le Carré book then this probably would have worked much better.

★★☆☆☆

2/5

The 355 is disappointing and lacks any means of having a lasting impact. You won’t want to be rushing to see a sequel anytime soon, if one ever materialises that is. The 355 has the benefit of playing in cinemas, but I do feel the film would have faired better on streaming and perhaps would have gotten a bigger audience. Kinberg and Chastain put a great amount of effort into their new espionage thriller, but I would stick to the classics for now.

Thanks for reading today’s blog!

Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions