This haphazard comedy-action film mostly plays like the script was written on the discarded roach of a smoked joint, but the likability of the cast makes up for a lot.

You would get more sparks from rubbing a wet flannel with a wetter rock. But try it anyway. It could hardly be more tedious than waiting for Freelance to crawl to its predictable denouement.

Brie and Cena look lifeless and blank-faced; they’ve got no chemistry, and the objectionable dynamics of him manfully rescuing her shrieking from the clutches of the bad guys on repeat feel like a satire of the genre – which this isn’t.

The green-screened backdrops evoke the aesthetics of a horrendous PowerPoint project.