Movie Review: 'The 355' Starring Jessica Chastain

The 355 stars Jessica Chastain as Mace, a contractor for the CIA. When Mace is betrayed during a mission to recover the ultimate, all in one, world ending MacGuffin, she goes out on her own and outside the law to find out who betrayed her. Joining Mace, eventually, on this mission is Marie Schmidt (Diane Kruger), a German operative with the same mission of getting the ultimate, all in one, world ending MacGuffin but claiming it for Germany and not letting it go to the United States intelligence apparatus.

Also, eventually helping Mace is Khadija (Lupita Nyongo), a hacker turned MI6 Operative who specializes in technology. Finally, there is Graciela (Penelope Cruz), a member of the Colombian intelligence service though not as an agent. Graciela is a mental health counselor who is sent to Paris to bring back an agent who has gone rogue after acquiring the ultimate, all in one, world ending MacGuffin. Graciela winds up in the middle of all of the action surrounding the MacGuffin despite her lack of combat experience.

There is one more member of The 355 but the movie seems to want that to be a spoiler so I won’t ruin anything in this review. I can tell you that Sebastian Stan is in The 355 but is not a member of that group which is made up entirely of female agents in the mold of George Washington’s legendary unnamed female spy. Stan plays a fellow CIA Agent and the lover of Chastain’s Mace. Their relationship gets a pretty big test as the story progresses. Stan and Chastain are both attractive people but their romantic chemistry is only okay, they have a strong friends vibe that lacks in romantic sparks. That's unfortunate as the plot hinges a little on us buying in on them as a couple.

The 355 was directed by Simon Kinberg, a veteran of big budget action movies though mostly as a writer and producer. The 355 marks Kinberg’s second directorial effort after the mediocre X-Men The Dark Phoenix in 2019. That film also co-starred Jessica Chastain and it appears that these two need not work together anymore. Kinberg seems to take what makes Chastain special and flatten it out to correspond with his vision of the lowest common denominator action movie.

Chastain is one of our most dynamic and unique actors and yet, when working on an action movie, she can’t elevate it and instead appears to lower her performance to meet the mediocre standard of her director and the script. Sadly, the same can be said about Diane Kruger, another dynamic performer flattened out by Kinberg’s simplistic approach to directing a big budget action movie. There are little glimmers of character, especially in the performances of Lupita N’Yongo and Penelope Cruz, but the movie is too convoluted for any of the characters to stand out from the noise of the plot.

The 355 contains every spy movie cliché imaginable and each is rendered in the most pedestrian, rote fashion. The ultimate all in one world ending MacGuffin provides the proper motivation for the action but Kinberg appears incapable of making the action exciting or believable. The fight scenes of The 355 are chaotic but not in a good way. Rather, the camera whips around failing to capture the action properly while also making sure we don’t see anything long enough to see if it looks good or not.

Was there anything I liked about The 355? Fan Bingbing is having some fun in her role but I don’t want to spoil anything with her as I don’t hate The 355 enough to spoil it. I will just say that of the main characters of The 355, Bingbing seems to get the most out of the action scenes even as the plot renders her character confusing as she pushes the middle of the movie forward with her supporting arc. Bingbing’s Lin is a big part of the plot but that plot is hampered by the script which gives the people opposite Lin on the good versus evil scale, no real good reason for not killing her.

The 355 is in theaters as of Friday, January 7th. If you are a Jessica Chastain fan who has to see everything she does, you might find something to enjoy in The 355. The film is competent but not much more than that. There are better all female shoot’em up movies out there, Gunpowder Milkshake, for instance, does a lot of what The 355 does but in a more entertaining fashion, as does Kate starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead. If you want a female-centric action movie, both of those movies are on Netflix now.