Role Play belongs to the micro-genre of “action-comedies about a seemingly normal couple who get sucked into a violent crime caper.” At its best, this can result in a romp like 2018’s Game Night and the new Mr. & Mrs. Smith series — but Role Play doesn’t push quite hard enough with either its action or comedy, resulting in a film that's perfectly fine but a little flat.
Kaley Cuoco plays Emma Bracket, a mom of two who just so happens to spend a lot of time travelling for work. After one of these work trips results in her forgetting her anniversary with her husband Dave (David Oyelowo), the couple decide to spice up their marriage by adopting personas and roleplaying as strangers meeting for the first time in a bar.
Their sexy game goes awry when they encounter an overly familiar stranger (Bill Nighy) in the bar, setting off a violent chain of events that exposes Emma for who she really is: a globetrotting assassin trying to get out of her life of crime and live a quiet life with her family.
It’s a fun setup that slightly under-delivers at every turn: Emma and Dave have a decent amount of chemistry, but not enough to suspend the disbelief that he would stick with her after learning that she’s a professional killer; Dave brings some laughs with his fish-out-of-water reaction to his wife’s murderousness, but none of the jokes are developed beyond him having a shocked reaction to someone’s death; and the action sequences, while never completely falling flat, are far too brief and never raise the heart rate. Director Thomas Vincent doesn't fully grapple with the grim realities of Emma's profession in order to work as a thriller, but he also doesn't commit to slapstick comedy, resulting in a film that perpetually has one foot out the door.
It’s a shame that Role Play has been dumped straight to Prime Video, because where it truly belongs is on airplane entertainment systems, where it can help bored travellers waste a couple hours while half nodding off after a mini-sized bottle of wine.
