You might recognize Kaley Cuoco (“Penny” fromThe Big Bang Theory) wearing a red wig and sharing drinks with Bill Nighy in the photo above. Cuoco plays a highly paid assassin who wants to “retire.” But, because she’s such a good assassin, forces move to keep Cuoco “in the game.”
Where Role Play goes off the rails is when Cuoco flees to Berlin to meet up with her handler, Raj (Rudi Dharmalingam) and engages in a lot of fighting and shooting. That is just a prelude to Cuoco informing her clueless husband, Dave (David Oyelowo), that she’s a legendary international assassin and not just his workaholic wife. Then, the Bad Guys grab Cuoco’s children and Cuoco goes ballistic.
The best part of Role Play are the scenes with Bill Nighy, but those are all too brief. The rest of this movie is a mess. A good cast ruined by an idiotic script. GRADE: C
So… she’s the female version of Arnold in TRUE LIES? Sounds less than believable. As a huge Bill Nighy fan, Jackie might watch this, but it sounds bad.
We watched the first series of Cuoco as THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT, but after a while it got too ridiculous and we quit before the second (final) series.
Jeff, if Jackie does decide to watch ROLE PLAY, she’s only going to see Bill Nighy for five minutes in the film. I found this movie disappointing.
I showed your reviews to Jackie, who said, “Sounds like my kind of movie.”
Jeff, let us know what Jackie thinks AFTER she watches ROLE PLAY.
I just checked. It got 19% on Rotten Tomatoes and I think even Jackie is going to pass.
Jeff, 19% is generous for ROLE PLAY!
Jackie says she liked FUBAR with Arnold. But I’d take Geena Davis in Bill Crider’s favorite, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT.
Jeff, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT is very underrated. Bill Crider loved that movie! And, any movie with pirates in it!
Seems like we’re starting to get a lot of second (or third) rate fare. Although Mr. and Mrs. Smith looks promising.
Patti, a friend of mine believes it will take months for full movie and TV production to be restored after the Actors/Writers Strike. Meanwhile, projects like MR. AND MRS. SMITH and ROLE PLAY that were in the pipeline are showing up.
As a person who was underwhelmed by the Brangelina version of MR. & Mrs. SMITH, I enjoyed the first episode of the series, which we watched last night, Donald Glover is very good, and they obviously filmed in New York, with real subway trains and what appears to be Brooklyn in several scenes. I guess we’ll see where they go from here.
Bill Nighy is one of those actors who can elevate a bad flick to a tolerable one and a tolerable flick to an entertaining one. Sad to hear he is underused in ROLE PLAY.
Jerry, if Bill Nighy was in ROLE PLAY for 50 minutes instead of just 5 minutes, it could have been a completely different movie…and better.
I’m not sure we’re Completely Done with “peak tv” as yet, particularly since I was never bowled over by SUCCESSION nor WESTWORLD. (I hadn’t read this nearly year-old SLATE article till now–https://slate.com/culture/2023/03/peak-tv-over-golden-age-hbo-streaming.html–but only a scrap of it is outdated, with Starz having picked up MINX…). I let Starz’s best series (at least since PARTY DOWN) get by me in its delayed season premiere, but now have seen both new episodes of HIGHTOWN (they rhyme).
Todd, I’ve been disappointed in many TV series lately. I abandoned LOKI, Season 2 after a couple of dreadful episodes. My friends tell me ECHO on Disney+ sucks. So, I guess I’m just waiting for The Mandalorian to return.
I’d like to see what they’ll do with season 2 of WILL TRENT, among others.
And Steve Lewis has taken a similar look at this one: https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=86932