Yahoo News Kaley Cuoco's new movie Role Play is a bland take on a familiar story
Stop us if you've heard this one before. Somebody looks to have the perfect family life, only for it to be revealed that they're a secret agent and their partner had absolutely no clue of their double life.
Replace agent for assassin and you've got new Prime Video movie Role Play. Kaley Cuoco takes on the lead role as Emma Brackett who has an ideal life in the suburbs with her husband Dave (David Oyelowo) and two children, who have no idea she's really an assassin for hire.
When one job leads to Emma forgetting their anniversary though, she decides to spice things up by suggesting a bit of role play. They plan to meet in a bar and pretend to be total strangers for the night, but an unexpected third wheel in the form of Bob (Bill Nighy) is about to spice things up in a way Emma never expected.
Watch Role Play on Prime Video
While Kaley Cuoco has had huge success in TV with the likes of The Big Bang Theory and The Flight Attendant, she's still really waiting for that one movie role to succeed in the same way. Unfortunately, Role Play won't be that movie.
It's not so much that the movie is a familiar set-up, but that it never really knows what to do tonally. The likes of True Lies, Mr and Mrs Smith and last year's dreadful Ghosted all treat the concept as a comic one: even if it was really a thing that happened in real life, you'd probably quickly ask for a divorce.
Role Play appears to treat it more seriously, but ends up lacking the conviction to follow through on it. The reveal, which is delayed longer than necessary, is treated with an emotional weight that is refreshing. At least it is until we get the awful line "killing is bad, like unacceptably bad" as an awkward capper.
It's a common pattern throughout the movie and it leaves it in an unsatisfying middle ground. You never quite get the amount of laughs or action that you expect from this type of movie, and it's also not unique enough to compensate for that.
Role Play ends up being the archetypal streaming movie. It's bland and inoffensive, with a plot and a villain (the wasted Connie Nielsen) that requires only a couple of exposition dumps to understand.
The movie coasts by on its familiarity and the charisma of the always-watchable Kaley Cuoco and David Oyelowo. They're both capable of much more and you will wish they were given the chance to make this a truly unique spin on the genre. This is not that movie.
You will forget it as soon as it's ended, but Role Play will likely keep you entertained enough as long as you don't expect it to spice up your life.
Role Play is available to watch now on Prime Video.
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