Ellie Conway, the novelist behind the popular spy novel series Argylle, is nothing like her fictional creation. Where he is strong, resourceful and quick-thinking in the moment, she is much more introverted and not prone to action. All of that changes when she is approached by a stranger on a train who claims to be an actual spy and that Ellie’s books are too close to actual things happening in the espionage world, and that has made her a target of some very unsavory people. She naturally doesn’t believe him, until she is attacked by virtually every other passenger in the train car, intent on killing her. To her surprise, the stranger, who eventually introduces himself as Aidan, handily dispatches the would-be assassins and the two, along with Ellie’s cat Alfie, are on the run from a rogue spy agency who wants Ellie’s uncanny ability to predict what is happening i the spy underworld.
That is the initial premise of Argylle, an energetic and often times gonzo Hitchcockian-riff with a splash of director Marc Forster’s 2006 comedy Stranger Than Fiction and a few ideas from Argylle director Matthew Vaughn’s own previous work tossed in for good measure. And when it says “Directed by Matthew Vaughn” on the tin, you pretty much now what you are going to be getting – a kinetic, technicolor roller coaster ride of strung together action sequences with a visual flair unique to Vaughn. Although there is a lot of gunplay – as well as some knife play at one point – the film is fairly bloodless compared to other of Vaughn’s films, no doubt a function of it’s PG-13 rating.
Argylle hangs its story on a number of twists and turns, with the plot switching back on itself before shooting off in another direction entirely a number of times. Some of these reveals are effective – there was on in particular where preview audience I screened the film with outright gasped – some are less so. But it would be unfair to the filmmakers to delve too deeply into why some of these surprises worked and others didn’t at this point early in the film’s release. Suffice it to be said that the twists are the thing that fuel the film’s narrative, propelling it along from one set piece to the next. However, after a particularly significant surprise is unveiled at about the midpoint of the movie, Argylle loses its steam somewhat until we get to the film’s somewhat overstuffed climax. But credit should be given to Vaughn and screenwriter Jason Fuchs. The pair play extraordinarily fair with this film and the audience, with every twist and reveal being setup beforehand often times right under the audience’s noses.
The film’s third act is action sequence piled upon action sequence. All are impeccably staged with cinematic verve, even if one segment seems to visually echo a climactic moment in the director’s Kingsman. There is also one final twist that, if one has gotten into the movie’s rhythm, one will see coming from a mile away. As the climax goes on, it starts to feel a little much; though each action setpiece is done well, it is hard to pick which one should have been ejected from the movie to help the ending land a bit better.
What can be said is that the performances throughout Argylle are fun and strong, even in the face of some weird scripting choices. Gangly and quirky Sam Rockwell is probably nobody’s first pick to play an action hero spy, but he plays one here with verve as the espionage agent who draws Ellie into the real world of her novels. Bryce Dallas Howard does well as the shy author and she manages Ellie’s third act character arc extraordinarily well, never making it seem like a sudden shift. Catherine O’Hara, as Ellie’s mom, turns in a delightful performance and it would have been fun to see more of her in the film’s third act.
