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2 hours ago
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The bone-deep magnificence of Hannah Waddingham is such that she could, I suspect, talk most of us into a burning car should she wish to. So selling viewers on the delightfully ludicrous premise of the comedy caper Ride or Die is but the work of a moment. Waddingham plays Whiptail, a deadly assassin for the last 20-odd years whose work has recently become more attention-grabbing than her bosses like. Octavia Spencer (who occupies god-tier comedy status in my heart for her tiny part as Tracy Morgan’s nemesis in 30 Rock alone) is her best friend Debbie. Debbie knows Whiptail as Judith, a forensic accountant, and has no idea that behind the woman she depends on for laughs, emotional support and notes on the latest book club book she hasn’t read is a trained killer.
Debbie is married to David (Jamie Parker), a politician, and is the gentle power behind his throne. His personal and professional life have been shaped and smoothed by her for the past 25 years, and he is now on course to be the next prime minister.
Both women’s lives are thrown into chaos at the same time. Whiptail’s boss Sam (Calam Lynch, a wonderful performance of carefully calibrated callow youth) calls her in to discuss upper management’s concerns about her cavalier approach to recent jobs. “Is it,” he says with misguided kindness, “because you’re 50?” He has heard that women this age can start acting out, and pushes a Patek Philippe watch towards her as a retirement gift “if you want it”. Or she can do the next job perfectly and keep working. Whiptail quite understandably Waddinghams him good, chucks the watch to the nearest homeless person and smashes her way through her employer’s HQ to find The Director (Bill Nighy), then Waddinghams him, too. In the end, however, she reluctantly agrees to off a gangland criminal by the name of Billy Donovan (Ed Skrein) by slipping him poison (“Cowardly! Where’s the showmanship?”) at a charity gala.
Debbie and David are at the gala too. On the way there, David breezily announces that he wants a divorce. “We’ve had a good innings! Chin up, don’t make a scene.” Debbie takes to the tequila while Whiptail, having failed to poison Billy discreetly, starts improvising her way towards an alternative death. She loses her target but finds a bloodbath caused by someone else. David is one of the many murdered, and a taunting postcard has been left for Whiptail to find. Now she must get a paralytic Debbie to safety – the moment Waddingham punches away an attacker without breaking her stride will live in me for ever – and work out WTF is going on. As must Debbie.
As I say, ludicrous. But so much fun. Everything depends on Waddingham and Spencer’s chemistry and it is a thing of beauty. They convince as friends. Specifically, they convince as middle-aged friends who have been friends a long, long time. They belly laugh together. They have private jokes. They just get each other. When Debbie discovers Judith’s secret life, it is not the murdering that concerns her so much as the betrayal. As she automatically hands her burger gherkins over to Judith, she wants to know how their friendship could possibly be real.
It is a mark of Ride or Die’s success that you don’t realise until it’s over how unusual it is. Two fiftysomething actors playing fiftysomething parts that allow them to be funny, dramatic action heroes? That uses their ages not as a punchline but as a tool to torque the storyline and elevate the daft caper to a light commentary on women’s midlife state? Debbie and Judith find the world turning against them, assuming inadequacies, dismissing all evidence to the contrary, forcing invisibility. It will resonate with anyone slapping on the HRT patches and habitually wondering who, in the pantheon of people that deserve it, to kill next. The only real difference between us and Judith is that we are not skilled enough to follow through.
As the pair investigate who is toying with Whiptail and who killed David and why, there are action sequences aplenty (and in Waddingham we have, for once, a woman who really looks like a danger to others), plenty of laughs, some tender moments and heart given to the whole thing by the central pair’s friendship gradually deepening after the near-rupture, now that Debbie knows everything. And there is a parallel joy in watching two actors spark off each other and throw themselves into rare and unlikely parts both deserving of and uplifted by their talents. It’s the perimenopausal comedy thriller caper of your dreams, but one that everyone can enjoy. Get Waddinghammed. You know you want to.
