ROLE PLAY - Mark Reviews Movies

Role Play, Amazon MGM Studios

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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 12, 2024

Role Play takes a familiar premise—a seemingly ordinary person with a violent secret life—and almost does something compelling with it. It's a shame, really, about the third act, when screenwriter Seth Owen abandons those ideas for a climactic standoff and some action that ultimately put this movie into the same territory as its more formulaic kin.

There's not much of a twist to the usual plot of this tale, except, perhaps, that our protagonist with a hidden life is a wife and mother named Emma Brackett (Kaley Cuoco)—if that even is her real name. It's not, by the way, and that twist on the formula isn't really one, either. That's irrelevant to whether or not the movie succeeds or fails on its own terms, of course. It doesn't matter what the setup of a story is. It only matters what the filmmakers do with the premise.

Here, Owen gives us a pretty fun idea that becomes less about action and more about these characters, how Emma handles herself in a string of unexpectedly hairy situations, and how her husband Dave (David Oyelowo) gradually discovers and reacts to the truth that has been right in front of him since he met the woman he loves. Everything that could turn this into a smart thriller and a clever comedy that actually cares about its characters is right there. It's mainly the payoff that undoes the material's success.

Well before then, though, we watch Emma on her latest assignment, which is killing someone without detection in some European locale, and returning to her comfortable life in her suburban home in New Jersey, where the personal stakes are high—although arguably lower than the business of being a professional assassin for a shadowy entity. Emma's cover story for Dave and their two kids is that she had a business trip in Nebraska, and as usual, it all seems to work, except for one flaw. She forgot her and Dave's wedding anniversary, while her husband and kids have a whole event planned for the occasion.

Being an adoring and supportive husband, Dave acts as if it's not that big a deal, but it is. Their marriage has started to become stale in the usual ways—a lot of time apart, work getting in the way, scheduled time together, etc. The two come up with an idea for a little game to spice up things a bit. They'll get a hotel room in New York City for a night, pretend to be other people, and meet "by chance" in the hotel bar for an evening of role-playing fun.

A couple things about this are immediately striking. For one, these character come across as fairly grounded, beyond the performances (Cuoco only isn't convincing when playing tough, which doesn't arise until later, and Oyelowo is quite funny as an ordinary man and husband who finds himself caught up in more than he can handle because his wife is anything but ordinary). For another, the scenes that set the actual plot in motion play as a standalone setpiece that doesn't revolve around action.

No, Owen and director Thomas Vincent allow it to develop and reveal itself through dialogue. It helps immensely that a lot the talking comes from Bill Nighy, playing an actual stranger at the bar who gets in the way of Emma and Dave's role-playing session.

Nighy's one of those actors who elevates any moment he's in by his presence, and his subtly aggressive attitude, not-quite playful teasing, and uncomfortable chortle here give us a sense that, despite his easy charm and seemingly innocent motive of chatting up a pretty woman, something's just not right about this guy. The scene blends humor and tension in a way that builds without drawing too much attention to how it's going to fit into the inevitable plot (The payoff in a later scene has a few surprises, even though it's obvious where the whole incident is heading).

Even when that plot—which has Emma going into hiding after her secret identity is discovered—arrives, it becomes as much about Dave wresting with the notion that his wife might be a professional killer as it does Emma running, fighting, and shooting her way through an obstacle course of assorted goons. How often in similar stories does the unaware spouse become little more than a plot device, a barrier, or a joke as the action unfolds? After a government agent (played by Connie Nielsen) lays out all the evidence of Emma's real identity and profession in front of Dave, he has to weigh his love for the woman he knows against the lie she has told him for almost a decade, and the filmmakers take the idea more seriously than we might anticipate from the generally light tone until that point.

Obviously, the focus on characters, dialogue, and relatively relatable conflict can't last for long. However, it's admirable that Owen and Vincent make the effort of taking a predictable conceit, playing a bit with the formula, and finding a way to turn familiar material into something that, while it may not be wholly different, certainly does feel that way at times. The most significant shortcoming of Role Play, though, is that the filmmakers don't find the courage to really do something different, leading to a third act that might as well come from a playbook for generic storytelling.

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