But wasn't Statham's character equally, if not more, dismissive of her (the only difference being that she didn't fancy him)?
If the film had made more of an effort to paint Jude Law's character as a total a-hole, if not an outright villain, what you're saying would make sense. Or maybe they could have given him some sort of comeuppance, or at least have McCarthy's character explicitly telling him to go **** himself rather than sympathetically advise him to put his trust in one of her colleagues.
Maybe the ending Paul Feig went for was the more mature and sophisticated approach, but it didn't really fit with the rest of the film which mostly went for quite broad comedy and characterisations, and I didn't feel as if there was a true payoff for the characters (Rose Byrne's villain, despite being a complete beetch, is simply shoved into the back of a police car), or enough of a clear distinction between Law and Statham's characters (Law should have either been a true villain or at least a bit of a heel in order to properly distinguish him from Statham's arrogant and inept, but essentially decent, agent).
Overall it is a very good film, and certainly better than the vast majority of mainstream comedies released by the big studios these days. I just thought that it had the potential to be a real comedy classic, but in order to realise that potential Feig needed to finesse the writing for a few of the characters.
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leader (1682)
5 years ago
> But wasn't Statham's character equally, if not more, dismissive of her
I did not get that impression at al. Statham's character was competitive and that caused him to be a jerk (plus obviously it had to happen for comedy reasons) but his heart was in the right place. He just wanted to solve the case. To me there is a clear distinction between his relationship with Melissa's character, and that of Jude Law's.
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[deleted]
5 years ago
I liked Statham's character over Jude's (and like you say, he wasn't truly dismissive of McCarthy, but just simply wanted to be #1). I just felt the distinction between the two men could have been clearer (which is a strange thing for me to be arguing because usually my issue is that mainstream comedies are too broad rather than too subtle).
I also thought it was odd that Statham ended up in bed with McCarthy's character. I think it would have been more interesting if they'd made him latently gay or asexual, and all his macho bluster was an overcompensation, in order to contrast him with Jude's playboy 007 type and Peter Serafinowicz's (faux) Italian sleazebag.
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