‘Role Play’ Review: Kaley Cuoco and David Oyelowo Get Trampled by Tired Action-Comedy Tropes (2024)

A new film about an assassin for hire? It must be a day ending in “y.”

Of course, Role Play, premiering on Amazon Prime Video, isn’t just another movie about a contract killer. It’s a movie about a contract killer who has a double life, in this case as a happily married suburban wife and mother to two children. Because, as demonstrated by The Family Plan — a very similar film that recently appeared on a competing streaming service — that seemingly normal person living next door may in fact possess very special skills. So be careful with whom you carpool.

The central character is played by Kaley Cuoco, who seems to have developed a taste for onscreen danger after all those years trading quips with science geeks on The Big Bang Theory. In The Flight Attendant, her character wakes up in a hotel room after a one-night stand and discovers a dead body in bed next to her, with ensuing dangerous complications. In Based on a True Story, she’s a real estate agent and true crime junkie who teams up with a serial killer. Here she’s doing the killing herself, as a professional assassin named Emma who’s clearly first rate at her job, as shown in an opening sequence in which she pulls off an international hit with aplomb.

Returning to her New Jersey home, she complains to her unwitting husband Dave (David Oyelowo) about how boring her business trip to Nebraska was. More problematically, she’s forgotten their seventh wedding anniversary, prompting a heartfelt discussion about whether their marriage has gone stale. So they do what any couple would in that situation: make a plan to rendez-vous in a New York City hotel bar, pretending not to know each other. Because in bad movies the secret to keeping a marriage alive is honing your improv skills.

Emma, waiting alone and dressed up for the occasion in a slinky dress and wig, is chatted up by a dapper older gentleman who asks the seemingly innocuous question, “Do you love what you do?” He quickly withdraws after Dave shows up, but when Emma later slips Dave a knockout drug and shows up at the man’s room, it’s revealed that he’s a fellow assassin who now attempts to blackmail her. Which doesn’t work out so well for him. He’s played by Bill Nighy, who for a few precious minutes lifts the film up to a whole new level thanks to his wittily droll performance, making it a particular shame that his character gets dispatched so quickly.

Emma and Dave are quickly considered “persons of interest” by the police investigating the murder, prompting Emma to finally reveal the truth to her distraught husband. It’s then that Role Play goes quickly downhill, with Emma forced to travel to Berlin to fulfill a contract, resulting in a series of unexciting shootouts and car chases proving that the Mission: Impossible and John Wick series have completely raised the bar for these sorts of sequences. By the time Emma’s former handler (Connie Nielsen) shows up at their home with goons in tow and orders her to kill her husband, the storyline has degenerated from mildly amusing black comedy to silly action-movie tropes.

Thomas Vincent’s uninspired direction makes the film seem much longer than its 100 minutes, while Seth Owen’s formulaic script has only one witty moment, when Emma tearfully justifies her choice of lethal profession by saying, “I don’t know how to do anything else” and Dave exasperatedly responds, “Then take a class!”

It’s a shame, because Cuoco’s well-honed comic skills are very much on display and Oyelowo, working in a lighter vein than usual, seems to be enjoying himself. Which is more than you’ll be able to say about the viewers of this tired action-comedy retread.