The Spy Who Dumped Me

8/10

Comedy/Action/ Thriller/Romance

Supermarket cashier Audrey Stockton (Mila Kunis) meets Drew Thayer (Justin Theroux) in a bar on her birthday and sparks fly.

Their whirlwind romance ends abruptly with Drew dumping Audrey by text.

She seeks solace in the company of 30-something best friend Morgan (Kate McKinnon), who has a hilarious habit of oversharing with her parents (Paul Reiser, Jane Curtin).

Drew subsequently reveals that he is an undercover CIA operative and had to terminate the relationship with Audrey because the criminal fraternity was prepared to hurt her to get to him.

Audrey is touched until bullets fly and she goes on the run with Morgan and a USB flash drive encrypted with details of a terrorist network's diabolical plans.

The women head to Austria where they cross paths with dashing MI6 agent Sebastian Henshaw (Sam Heughan) and a deranged, gymnastic assassin (Ivanna Sakhno).

The Spy Who Dumped Me is an action-packed adventure, which borrows a few crowd-pleasing moves from female-centric capers The Heat and Spy to ensnare two hopelessly unprepared gal pals in a sticky web of intrigue.

Susanna Fogel's film promotes girl power with every predictable twist and turn including some amusing interludes with Gillian Anderson's stern MI6 chief, who Morgan gushingly crowns "the Beyonce of the government".

McKinnon's boundless energy and gift for pratfalls papers over cracks in the script and catalyses a sprightly screen pairing with Kunis's comic foil, who is remarkably adept with a hand gun under pressure.

Fogel masterminds set-pieces with assurance including an opening pursuit that owes its death-defying acrobatics to Jason Bourne.

Rating: ***