LADIES FIRST Review

Damien Sachs (Sacha Baron Cohen) is an ultra-successful ad executive with the Atlas agency and he has an insatiable thirst for more. More power, more sex, more money, he wants it all. And in doing so, he ticks every wealthy male stereotype box we all love to hate. Adding fuel to this fire is the fact that he's been tapped by current CEO, Fred Powell (Charles Dance), to be his successor.

Except there's a catch.

In order to save face and show that Atlas is inclusive and diverse, there needs to be a woman promoted to a leadership position. Without this, Damien isn't a lock to be the natural successor to Fred.

He immediately calls his assistant, Ruby (Weruche Opia) and asks for a list of women at the company. Ruby reads the list alphabetically, leading with Alex Fox (Rosamund Pike). Damien says Alex will be perfect for the role. Besides, she's just another box he has to tick in order for him to gain more power.

In her first meeting, Alex is trying to pitch her ideas for a Guinness campaign. However, being the only woman in the room, she's constantly interrupted and talked over. Damien is the biggest offender of this and ultimately frustrates her to the point that Alex walks out. Just straight up quits and leaves the building. Knowing that him being CEO depends on Alex staying in her role, Damien runs after Alex, trying to get her to stay.

They are on the street in front of the office building when Damien, not paying attention, slams right into a light pole and gets knocked out cold. When he comes to, the ads on the streets all seem to feature men being sexualized in some way, down to the traveling billboard for Burger Queen.

As his new reality sinks in, Damien is terrified to learn that women seem to rule the world now.

Is he capable of learning and growing in this alternate universe?

There's not much worse than going into a movie with low expectations and still walking away disappointed.

Ladies First had plenty of potential. A chauvinistic pig waking up in a matriarchal world lends itself to plenty of comedic opportunities. Unfortunately, what we got was something that resembled an uninspired Freaky Friday.

Rather than establishing a world with its own set of morals and values, the world Damien wakes up in is one of a simple role reversal. Almost as if someone just changed every "he" in the script to "she" and vice versa. Sure, that can be funny in the right context. But the problem with that here is you're asking your audience to critique these awful behaviors of people in power one moment and then laugh at those same behaviors when the shoe is on the other foot. The script also unintentionally sends the message that it doesn’t matter if it is a man or a woman in a position of power, these behaviors are inevitable.

As for the cast, Sacha Baron Cohen feels incredibly restrained in the role of Damien. Even when he's supposed to be funny, it comes across as if he was struggling to make it happen. Maybe it was the lack of prosthetics and over-the-top costumes that he relies on in his more sketch-like roles. Maybe he just didn't feel up to trying to improve or elevate what he was given to work with. Whatever the case, it winds up being a very forgettable performance.

The lone bright spot in Ladies First is Rosamund Pike. Her performance is singlehandedly responsible for me not abandoning this. In the first half, you're rooting for her to succeed with her promotion. When she storms out and quits, you're hoping she doesn't turn around and just keeps walking. And then when the swap occurs, that's where Pike really shines. She brings something reminiscent of her Gone Girl role to Alex Fox. Cold, calculated, and downright ruthless. She commands the screen whenever she appears. And she deserved better than this.

Every now and then Netflix will drop an original film that has some staying power. More often than not, their original films are forgotten soon after they drop.

Ladies First is firmly in the forgotten camp.

🍿 SCORE = 30 / 100