Ghosted: Film Review
Films revolving around a secret agent trying to have a relationship are nothing new – True Lies, Knight and Day and even Mr. and Mrs. Smith used the concept to great effect, however, the same cannot be said for Ghosted.
The movie, directed by Dexter Fletcher, stars Chris Evans as an emotionally needy farmer named Cole. One day at the farmers’ market, he meets Sadie (Ana de Armas) and they go on a date and hook up. When Sadie promptly ghosts him, Cole tracks her down in London and gets caught in a trap set by a bunch of bad guys. It turns out that Sadie is a secret agent – and now she has to protect Cole as well as carry out her mission.
A concept like this hinges upon the chemistry between the two leads and Ghosted is somehow a chemistry-free zone, even though Evans and de Armas have worked together before. During their first encounter, an onlooker comments on their “sexual tension” and I couldn’t help but laugh because there really wasn’t any. The film never recovers from the fact that you don’t feel anything between them and therefore don’t care if they get together.
In fact, if I were in Sadie’s shoes, I would get as far away from Cole as possible. It was refreshing to see Evans playing such a helpless person (the man is usually the agent in these films) but he’s over-eager to the point of creepy. He texts her constantly and uses a tracking device to fly to London to show up unannounced after just one date. That is stalker behaviour. Plus, he’s annoying and becomes a nuisance.
The mission revolves around a case of mistaken identity. The bad guys, who work for Leveque (Adrien Brody), want the passcode to get into a briefcase containing a biological weapon named Aztec. They think Cole is “The Taxman”, aka the person with the code, but it’s actually Sadie. But to be honest, this doesn’t matter. This could be any generic action plot. It’s lightweight, throwaway, formulaic and we’ve seen it all before.
It’s hard to explain why it all feels so flat. The action sequences feel lifeless and uninspired, the comedic lines of dialogue don’t pop and the celebrity cameos (which I won’t spoil) feel shoehorned in for no reason. Normally, I find celebrity cameos thrilling but this time around, it just felt like a hollow attempt to inject some excitement into the movie. The three-person run of cameos isn’t so bad, but the fourth one that comes later really made me groan.
Both Evans and de Armas are better than this so I can’t put my finger on why they didn’t gel well with each other or the material. Something just didn’t connect here. The only actor who made any impact on me was Lizzie Broadway as Cole’s sister Mattie – she called him out on his BS and talked a lot of sense. I wanted more of her.
Ghosted has a few entertaining moments but it’s ultimately a generic mess.
Streaming on Apple TV+ now