Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sophie Boutella
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox
Runtime: 129 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2015
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This British-American action movie, is based on the comic book, “The secret Service”, created by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar. It tells the story of a veteran secret agent, Harry Hart (Colin Firth), who recruits a young man, Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), and introduces him to the harsh, conflicted world of international espionage. Eggsy becomes one of a team of young people who are given “trials” to prove their mettle.
Eggsy was a promising street kid, who lived in a Council flat with his widowed mother, and Harry feels in debt to him, because Eggsy’s father died saving his life in a failed spy mission 17 years previously. Hart rescues Eggsy from prison and puts him into the training program with other young people who “have potential”. The program is dedicated to the production of sophisticated, intelligent spies, and in this way, the film sets the stage for Pygmalion change.
The film as a whole is a witty take on the adventures of James Bond in spy movies that featured in the early 60’s and beyond. It is unashamedly action-oriented in style, and it is directed by Matthew Vaughn with energy and pace. The film is replete with reference to old movies, actors and celebrities, and makes pointed fun of modern super-hero action films. However, in doing all this, it is very violent. Tiny microchips cause human heads to explode (to the witty accompaniment of stirringly patriotic British music), and Harry gleefully dispatches people with the help of his bullet proof umbrella. Harry’s umbrella scenes satirise very cleverly the studied coolness of John Steed in the iconic (1961) television series, “The Avengers”.
The film does all it can to pass off strong violence playfully as humour, and in that respect, it succeeds, but only partially. It makes good fun of spy movies, but the degree of violence it shows borders often on being excessive. A Church massacre, for instance, where people are programmed to attack each other while at a prayer service, while Hart starts to despatch them before that happens, pushes the point of inventive satire too far.
The film is scripted well, and has many memorable one-liners and double entendres, and the acting is uniformly excellent. Colin Firth acts completely against type as the debonair operative with a taste for aggression, who seems an unlikely hero. Firth goes about the spy trade with British reserve, social elegance, and dressed impeccably to kill. To Hart, being superior is the name of the game. For him, “nobility is (always) superior to your former self”.
Samuel L. Jackson makes an attention-grabbing villain, Richmond Valentine, and Taron Egerton does his “Pygmalion” routine, changing from a rough street kid to a man of upperclass finesse under Harry’s solicitous gaze. By the end of the movie, in typical Pygmalion fashion,” (just like “My Fair Lady” as Eggsy says) Eggsy becomes the next Kingsman. Michael Caine stylishly plays the man in charge of the spy agents’ headquarters, and, true to people in charge of the “secret service”, the film spoofs him as a man of shady morals who is responsible for an organisation that operates outside the law.
The movie aims to be funny and presents a range of well-directed action set-pieces that intentionally send up spy scenarios with aggressive appeal, but its satire has many whimsical touches. Harry, for example, is aversive to the sight and feel of blood, but he loves his stuffed puppy dog to distraction. Valentine has no hesitancy about slaughtering people by issuing them with deadly SIM cards, but he is keen to save the environment. And Sophie Boutella plays Gazalle, his accomplice, who has razor blades where her legs used to be, and uses her glamour to swiftly create havoc and destruction wherever she goes.
There is no great moral messages in this film, except to have an absence of anything like them in nearly all that the film shows. The movie aims first and foremost to be entertaining, and offers action sequences that are highly inventive, and deliberately outrageous. One scene in particular that stands out is a car chase scene in which the car being pursued is travelling backwards. The cleverness of its spoofing makes the viewer think twice about the genre of the films it is satirising. Aggression is shown as not winning in the end, but the movie has no hesitation in descending into the realm of the gruesome along the way.
This is an entertaining and enjoyable film. Because of the level of its violence, it is especially not suitable for viewing by children, as its classification clearly signals. However, for adults who love spy movies, know their films, and are prepared to tolerate a lot of physical mayhem, its satire is highly original and very witty.
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