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Mr. & Mrs. Smith review
2005.07.03 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Reviews | by Andrew Cole
Marriage is hard work. [official site] |
A combination of the ridiculous and the sublime, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the proverbial roller coaster ride of an action movie. It stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, with a little support from Vince Vaughn and many, many luckless flunkies doomed to die without a speaking part.
The film tells the tale of two icy killers, assassins employed by two nameless bureacracies of the usual sort. Call them the Montagues and the Capulets. One day, John Smith blunders into the kill zone of wife Jane and nearly poaches her job, and so begins a game of cat and mouse that will leave the city and suburbs of New York strewn with broken glass and dead bodies.
They ask us to care only about the protagonists and their immediate environment, which, usually, is exploding. |
Writer Simon Kinberg (XXX: State of the Union) and director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) aren't answering any questions about who these people work for or why. They ask us to care only about the protagonists and their immediate environment, which, usually, is exploding.
Once we've established the humdrum existence the two endure with each other, the story kicks into high gear and the pace is furious. Moments of relationship comedy—and Vince Vaughn's hilarious turn as Pitt's handler—keep the action from wearing us down.
Pitt and Jolie underplay the emotion... and their characters trade anecdotes rather than heartfelt sentiment. |
But there's not as much anger in the Smiths—or passion, once they rekindle their love—as we might expect. Pitt and Jolie underplay the emotion a bit too much, and their characters trade anecdotes rather than heartfelt sentiment.
I almost added "...after they declare their love," but I don't think either character ever even says "I love you."
Still, it's the comedy, both dark and goofy, that rescues Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The dialog is fresh and snappy.
Mr. to Mrs. after she admits the man who gave her away at their wedding was an actor: "I said I saw your father on Fantasy Island."
[P]eople absolutely, positively cannot crawl thru ventilation ducts.... |
Writer Kinberg has a ways to go before he's ready to write a real romantic comedy, but this will do for now.
Even the wardrobe gets a laugh. In one scene, Pitt interrogates a junior heavy wearing a threadbare Fight Club T-shirt.
On the other hand, The Bourne Identity made me expect more from director Liman. This is the kind of movie where secret organizations send hoards of rent-a-thugs with automatic weapons to kill people from helicopters, and the cops never show up. And he apparently has a ways to go before he learns that people absolutely, positively cannot crawl thru ventilation ducts to infiltrate a building.
[F]or once, I don't have to complain that the female lead didn't have anything to do in an action film.... |
That's the sort of thing Hollywood has come to believe we expect from a movie like this, I suppose, but it limits the film unnecessarily. It would have felt a lot fresher and cleverer if they had thought a way around it. But, for once, I don't have to complain that the female lead didn't have anything to do in an action film, and that's reason enough to see it.
Now... about stealing (and cheating) the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid....
f e e d b a c k
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