Freddy Long’s Feel the Burn clearly has an appreciation for the spy genre. This movie hits almost every note that viewers expect from an espionage thriller. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hit them convincingly. Feel the Burn has a lot of style, but not enough substance underneath to make it matter.
Writer-director Long definitely knows the sandbox he’s playing in. The plot is classic: two rival spies aiming for the same target, whom they both happen to have a past with. The movie opens with sweeping dramatic music and a glamorous introduction in which the two main characters are introduced with their codenames and the word “classified” stamped on screen like an old-timey dossier. Long has put considerable effort into wanting to create the mystique that spy movies are known for: there are numerous on-screen visuals that denote places, targets, and potential threats. The spies, Vivian and LaShay, are hardly ever anything less than stylish. There’s even a very tongue-in-cheek James Bond reference early on.
Unfortunately, once that novelty wears off, Feel the Burn just doesn’t have much to offer. Viewers that have any interest in real-life espionage history will key in on notes that make the fictional spy agency feel inauthentic, such as calling a burned spy “excommunicated,” and the fact that the agency’s name changes—it’s first introduced on paper as Black Ops Incorporated, and then later referred to as BOA. These small details make a difference, especially since Feel the Burn doesn’t have the budget of the Bonds and the Bournes to create a fully fleshed out spy world. It has to succeed in those details and in its emotional moments.
And on a purely storytelling level, Feel the Burn doesn’t connect. The dialogue feels like what Long thinks a spy movie should sound like, with characters repeatedly spelling out what they’re doing or have done; the movie tells more than it shows. The acting isn’t far behind; personality-wise, Vivian and LaShay aren’t different enough from one another, and spend too much time sassing each other. That early conflict should give way to some character growth, but actors Shannyn Stallworth and Latoya-Patrice Suber (the latter of whom is also credited as a producer) never quite get there. Camie Fairbanks portrays the duo’s handler Jade, and stretches out her lines as if she’s trying to make the exposition she’s been given seem more dramatic. These are all spy character types, who never make the leap to becoming fully realized people.
Long obviously has an idea of what he wants to do, and the themes he wants to utilize. At one point, he teases a bigger mystery, as if leaving the door open for a whole franchise. But that only works if the filmmaker can get those big ideas out of their head and distill them into something specific that an audience can invest into, and that’s where Feel the Burn falls well short. It puts a lot of work into looking and feeling like a big-budget spy film, even though it obviously doesn’t have those kinds of resources. It would have been better for Long to dial back the slick graphics, obtrusive score and visual effects, and devote more focus to character and dialogue. Just because the characters are covert operatives doesn’t mean that they have to be complete enigmas—in fact, it’s that conflict between personal truth and professional lies that makes the spy genre so compelling. The British series Spooks (also known as MI-5 for the American audience) was great at playing in those grey areas, and that’s why it lasted for almost a decade and a movie.
Feel the Burn does deserve credit for representation, as it’s great to see a spy film that centers almost entirely on people of color. There aren’t many espionage thrillers with predominantly non-white casts. And Long is clearly a fan of the spy genre; that much comes out, because he works in almost all the elements that fans expect to see. The execution simply isn’t there. It would be interesting to see Long take a second pass at this idea, or to try and make a spy film that is more organic, instead of trying to be something it isn’t.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of La Patris Films.
Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
