>>REVIEW
SPYMATE
STARRING Chris Potter, Emma Roberts and a monkey
DIRECTED BY Robert Vince
We’re all living lives of quiet desperation. We’re all combing our hair and wiping our asses, falling asleep and waking up to the business of feeding our faces. Yes, we’re all in it together, travelling in circles but never getting dizzy. And in the wake of all this feeding, it’s easy for us to get caught up in the frenzy, to loosen our grip, commit ourselves to the current, to drift along because there’s nothing to grab hold of – and why question the rush?
Luckily for all of us, every now and then a rock or tree limb appears in the form of a great work of art, something for us to grab hold of, to make us question the rush and gauge the true strength of this current we’re at the mercy of. For those fortunate enough to grab hold, the experience is nothing short of incredible.
For some that limb is a painting, for others it’s a book or a film. For me, the book was The Picture of Dorian Gray and the film was Spymate.
I knew from the very beginning when Minky, a monkey, dressed in traditional Arab garments, single-handedly infiltrates a secret terrorist base camp to rescue U.S. special agent Mike Muggins (who has the best name ever), that my perception of life was about to be forever altered.
So did I mention that Minky was a monkey?
Yes, with Spymate, producer-director Robert Vince (Air Bud, Air Bud: Golden Receiver, MVP: Most Valuable Primate, MVP2: Most Vertical Primate, Air Bud: World Pup, MVP: Most Xtreme Primate, Air Bud Strikes Back, Air Buddies…) dives headlong into uncharted waters, boldly reinventing the "animal who thinks he’s a person" genre.
Always the satirist, Vince’s Spymate is an obvious nod to the U.S. domestic spying scandal. The story follows Minky, a retired top-notch, government-trained international spy, who has spent the past 10 years living the quiet, dignified life of a retired monkey (in the circus). However, as luck would have it, Minky’s ex-partner’s 12-year-old genius daughter (who invented a super powerful laser-gun prototype) has gone and got herself kidnapped by an evil scientist, placing the entire world in jeopardy and forcing Minky to once again return to doing what it is he does best – kicking evil-people ass.
I’ll say no more, but rather leave you to bask in the subtleties of Minky’s nuanced performance (he says more with a curl of the lip than Brando said in an entire career).
Live, love and experience Spymate. |
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