It’s a new year, and that means new movies. But January is often the dumping ground for lackluster films, and that’s exactly what Amazon is offering up with Role Play. It’s a movie with a story audiences have seen before that takes a stab at being an action comedy with a few psychological drama elements mixed in.
Most of what Role Play tries falls short and relegates it to the territory of a bargain bin movie or something merely designed to pad the library of a streaming service.
Kaley Cuoco plays Emma, an assassin traveling the globe and killing targets for money while pretending to be a normal wife who works in the finance industry. Her husband, Dave, is played by David Oyelowo.
Emma uses her financial industry job as cover for traveling when she’s away on assassin missions.
After returning from her most recent assignment, Emma forgets her anniversary. Her husband suggests they work through marital issues by trying some role play, pretending to be strangers who meet at a hotel bar in Manhattan.
She agrees, but during her night at the hotel, another assassin named Bob (Bill Nighy) recognizes Emma and eventually tries to kill her. With her cover blown, Emma goes on the run just as her husband figures out she’s a wanted assassin. Together, they have to figure out how to survive a dangerous world of killers for hire and put their marriage back together.
Right from the start, Role Play is filled with tired tropes. The entire storyline of a killer pretending to be a normal family member, only to have their cover blown seems to be turned into a movie at least once or twice a year.
Role Play could be forgiven for using this tired trope if it offered some fun action sequences or plenty of laughs, but it’s not eager to give audiences either of those things. The way it’s shot and edited is extremely plain for an assassin movie. There are no slick shots or fun camera angles to enjoy.
Cuoco is a fine actor who could probably make a convincing or humorous spy with better writing or action choreography. She’s already spent years making people laugh on The Big Bang Theory and Harley Quinn. Cuoco also proved she can deliver with a darker, more mysterious narrative in The Flight Attendant. So it’s a mystery why this role seems to sap her of any comedic timing or convincing fight sequences. Writing? Direction? Perhaps the blame lies with a bit of both.
In the few scenes where they’re together and sharing an emotional connection, Cuoco does display some decent chemistry with Oyelowo. The latter also manages to provide one or two chuckles with his reactions alone. So the failures of Role Play aren’t on their shoulders. If provided with a better film, these two would make a fine fictional couple.
Maybe it’s not fair that Role Play is competing in the arena of assassin movies when other franchises have so recently raised the bar. Audiences have been treated to stylish fights and neon lights in John Wick and powerhouse performances from Denzel Washington in The Equalizer.
But Amazon’s newest cinematic offering didn’t have to match either of those franchises to provide audiences with an entertaining film. If Netflix can carve out an entertaining action narrative with its Extraction franchise, if Bullet Train can offer up a fun, colorful ride with equal parts action and comedy, and if Hanna and The Old Guard can place strong women in adrenaline-fueled killings, then Role Play really didn’t have an excuse to fail this hard.
So, it’s not very funny, and none of the action is believable. What else did Role Play try to offer? Believe it or not, the film attempts some psychological thriller elements by the end when the story finally reveals who has been chasing Emma the entire time.
Connie Nielsen plays Gwen, a soulless villain who audiences are told should have a powerful and emotional connection to Emma’s past. But there are no flashbacks or buildups in the story to develop this. The final act of Role Play drops so quickly in quality that Emma and Dave are shipped off to a vague bunker somewhere in a German forest.
Emma is told to kill Dave for unclear reasons, but she can supposedly still keep her children. The music tries to convince everyone Emma and Gwen are playing mind games with each other, but the dialogue they share and the lack of convincing exchanges suck any tension from their setup.
The gunplay feels fake, the final showdown is dizzyingly incompetent, and the suspension of disbelief for how Dave’s and Emma’s children react to their parents mysteriously appearing while covered in blood is just too much to ask.
Role Play feels long for a one-hour, 40-minute movie, and it seems like punishment to continue through the end credits. On top of everything, the movie managed to waste Nighy in a plot point that eats up a surprising chunk of the runtime but goes absolutely nowhere.
This movie is a frustrating experience, and Cuoco and Oyelowo deserved better. Everyone did.
