Granted, we are not at the epicenter of Western movie-making chatter, here in Abu Dhabi.

But shouldn’t I have heard more about a very funny movie entitled Spy and starring Melissa McCarthy?

This is how I came to see it tonight:

“Want to see a movie?”

“Could. Is that Pacino thing still in town?”

“Long gone.”

“Well.”

“There’s that ‘Spy’ movie … It has Melissa McCarthy.”

“Melissa McCarthy? … It’s a comedy?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll give Melissa McCarthy a try.”

And it turned out to be the funniest thing I’ve seen in a theater in a while. So good, actually, that it held the attention of a multicultural audience in the “big room” at the new theaters at Wahda Mall.

And that is quite a tribute, when you can make Westerners and Emiratis laugh at the same movie for two hours.

I’m not sure I’m in on everything Melissa McCarthy has ever done.

I’ve never seen the TV series Mike and Molly, being on the other side of the Atlantic for the whole of its run. Nor have I seen most of her early movie work.

But I saw Bridesmaids, probably more for Kristen Wiig than for McCarthy, thought it was the latter’s “breakout” film, and I liked it quite a bit (as did most everyone else). And I saw The Heat, which McCarthy shared with Sandra Bullock and also liked quite a bit (not that everyone else did).

What I know now is that Paul Feig directed both of those, and he also is the director for “Spy” — which I didn’t know till I got there.

Anyway, McCarthy, at least in movies, pretty much slays me with her foul-mouth rants. I have an immature/adolescent fondness for bad language in comedies, especially bad language done well.

And McCarthy does foul-language rants particularly well, and she gets dozens of them in “Spy.”

I was concerned that, in an Abu Dhabi movie theater, we might get a censored version of the movie, but I’m pretty sure the whole of it went untouched, and I was entertained throughout. Perhaps it helped that the movie was not open to anyone under 18.

The movie doesn’t seem to have gotten a lot of attention, or at least that is my sense — though movies get minimal exposure, before launch, in the UAE. So maybe it’s just here.

It also is more than a little violent, which comes as something of a surprise in a spoof. But take that into account, if you consider seeing it.

Anyway, I recommend it heartily, unless you have issues with bad language. If that is the case, don’t go anywhere near it.

And if you would like to see a couple of trailers (they overlap a bit), have a look here or here.