The 355 (2022)

Plot of The 355: Out in Colombia in the mansion of a drug lord a wonder device which can disable the operating system of anything within line of sight is demonstrated to a mafia boss, but a raid by the authorities takes place and th device is lost. Later a CIA agent Mason Brown is assigned the task of buying the device with her partner Nick. When it all goes wrong Mace gets the job from her boss to recover the device no matter what. Over time in various countries she comes up against agents of other governments and finally the four ladies get together to collectively recover the device, which they do. But after handing it back to Mace’s CIA boss it is lost again when he is killed. The device is apparently to be sold in an auction in Shanghai so the ladies attend, finding Mace’s former partner is now a villain and they are again under threat. They are rescued by a Chinese secret service woman, but must then face the possibility of their loved ones being killed by Nick’s henchmen in his bid to find the device.

Content: Sex is delicately implied, and there is some drinking. The opening scene has an aircraft crashing in the distance and a bunch of black clad guys with machine guns breaking up the party. In Paris Mace tries to buy the device, but ends up chasing a woman, who turns out to be a German spy, through the streets. It turns out that they are both after the same thing also a third woman from the Colombina secret service Graciela is on the case and joins them. They recruit a fourth woman, Khadijah Adiyeme, who is an IT expert, to join them. There are a number of battles between the women and various villains, usually involving hand to hand combat. These events become gradually more violent as time passes ending up with automatic weapons.

A View: This outing cost quite a bit, but got no-where near recovering its production costs. I am usually a sucker for spies, secret agents and shoot-em ups, but I was a bit bored. What was wrong I wondered, particularly since no-one else had liked it either. Often a film will get the green light on the basis of who is interested in doing it, so we can assume that because of Jessica Chastain, it went ahead regardless of the limitations of the script. Maybe the problem is that every time someone recovered the device, it would be lost again, allowing a not very clever repeat of the previous events. And it seems that one of the essentials of that sort of film, humour, was missing. So not a watch, even for nothing.

Fun Fact: Bingbing Fan, the Chinese actress, was missing for some months while she sorted out her tax affairs with the Chinese government.