There is a lesson Hollywood can learn from Apple TV+’s action romcom Ghosted: if you want to tell a story about a schlub who falls for a spy, don’t cast Captain America as the ordinary one. It’s just asking too much of your audience. You can’t present us with Chris Evans as a guy named Cole Riggan (surely churned out by the “big, tough manly man” name generator) and then argue he’s the polar opposite to Ana de Armas’ ass-kicking, CIA operative Sadie. When Evans falls, he doesn’t flail his limbs about like us mere mortals. When he has to pose as a legendary agent and break bread with the enemy (Adrien Brody’s Leveque), there’s a smirk on his face that reads as a little too confident, a little too in control. You don’t get the sense this guy even sweats.
Evans spent so many years flexing his muscles and his charisma in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and was so at home in the role of a chivalric superhero, that it’s almost as if he can’t help but slide back into that persona whenever the action kicks in. It’s wholly at odds with the sort of film that director Dexter Fletcher is trying to make – which is not to say that Evans is necessarily the source of the film’s faults. Cole is so sparsely characterised that all he can really do is state his character traits out loud. “I’m a farmer!” “I don’t like wearing suits!” There’s nothing believable about him.
