My Spy

Arnie was the first. In the days before muscles mattered more than style a stint at drama school was essential to the CV of a budding actor.

What Sly Stallone did with Rocky was exceptional but he was from Hell's Kitchen, New York, one generation away from Italy. Schwarzenegger was an Austrian bodybuilder who became the most successful movie star of his generation, not unlike Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) today. Now there is Dave Bautista, another wrestling champ crossover. Physically he resembles The Rock but that's where it ends. His acting skills are limited to bad boy scowls. His charm and sense of humour cannot match the natural vibration emanating from Dwayne. Where's the attraction? In this movie it belongs to 11-year-old Chloe Colemen who plays nine-year-old Sophie, daughter of a woman being staked out by Bautista as a CIA operative.

The plot runs into the ground after the first bullet is fired. Sophie insists on being told what's going on. Bautista says he's a spy. Sophie gets it. "You're my spy," she says and there you have it, tough guy pretends to be more complex than he looks, girl is the cleverest person on screen. Finis! Phew...

Two-handers are dependent on a script that zips and performances that don't let go. My Spy has a storyline that ties itself into knots. Questions are left hanging. Coleman is too small to reach them. Bautista doesn't try.

The film is a might-have-been, half way between disappointing and dull. Tough guys can't beat you into submission. They can stand in your way so that you can't see the girl who is going to save the day.