Bradley Fine (Jude Law) is the CIA’s top agent, thanks in large part to his adoring and super-competent desk-bound handler back at CIA HQ, Susan (Melissa McCarthy). So when Fine’s mission to recover a stolen nuclear bomb being secretly sold by Raina Boyanov (Rose Byrne) goes wrong, Susan’s the first to put her hand up to finish the mission.
As Raina somehow knows the identities of all the CIA’s field agents, it turns out that Susan is the best woman for the job… even though the job rapidly turns out to involve car chases, dangling from helicopters, and belting people with frypans. This is director Paul Feig’s third team-up with McCarthy (after Bridesmaids and The Heat) and he presents the spy world (especially the fights, which are surprisingly nasty and bloody) relatively straight in a Bond-like fashion. It’s a smart move, as it allows the consistently hilarious McCarthy to first react against its absurdities as the mild-mannered Susan, then take advantage of them when Susan eventually goes undercover as Raina’s brutal and foul-mouthed bodyguard.
The entire supporting cast (including UK imports Miranda Hart and an insanely lecherous Peter Serafinowicz) hits it out of the park, but it’s Jason Statham’s insane parody of his action movie persona (“I once sewed this arm back on using this other arm”) that’s the comedy highlight. Not that there’s any flat spots here: this is both rapid-fire funny and satisfyingly action-packed, and in a year of female-led comedies this one is going to be very hard to top.