2005 / 120 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

Despite the fact that it often feels like it was assembled out of bits and pieces of other movies (“The War of the Roses”, “Prizzi’s Honor”, “Grosse Pointe Blank”, and “True Lies”, to name a few) “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” somehow manages to work and to provide relentless entertainment value for the whole of its running length. You’ll get more out of this movie than simply wondering whether or not its two leads shacked up in reality.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play the titular Smiths, a couple who are seeing a marriage counselor in the first scene. They met and had a smoldering affair in Bogotá, Colombia a few years back (five or six, depending on which of them tells the story) and got married a couple of scant months later. Now, years later, the fires that ignited from the moment they met seem to be guttering and about to die. It’s not that they fight. They don’t communicate with each other enough to fight. They barely talk, and when they do it’s about mundane things that don’t matter. The two of them have so many secrets from one another that they barely know each other at all.

All of that changes, however, when they discover that they are both professional killers working for opposite firms. To say that this further complicates their relationship is putting it mildly. Soon each is trying to bump the other off, in highly entertaining ways. One scene, in particular, plays like “War of the Roses” with live ammo. Will they patch up their lethal differences? Will they kill each other? Will this whole experience actually reignite the spark of their marriage? You’ll have to see the movie to find the answer to these questions.

And you should see this movie. For one thing, it’s refreshing to see an action movie without comic book origins or spaceships (not that I have anything against spaceships and comic book movies…though I think I’d like a break from the superheroes, thank you very much). It’s also nice to see a movie that spends the first forty-five minutes developing its characters and then spends the rest of its running length having fun with them. Brad and Angelina both have great, complex, interesting characters to play around with, and both actors appear to be having a blast. They seem to be having such a blast, in fact, that it’s easy to believe that their onscreen chemistry was indicative of something deeper, something that kept going after the director called “Cut”. I mean, acting is one thing, but these two have an almost ridiculous amount of combustible chemistry from their first scene together (which is, fittingly, underscored by a couple bursts of flame). And it’s that chemistry that makes everything else work. If we, as an audience, didn’t believe them as a couple (a couple that are frankly perfect for each other, even if they don’t know it) then the rest of the movie would just be the usual, hollow, summer spectacle. They have such chemistry that when they started trying to kill each other, the heat between them just seems to grow. It’s fun watching them eventually open up to each other and confess secrets they’ve been keeping for ages (while firing shots and setting bombs to kill one another). The dialogue is clever and snappy, and the plot keeps things moving briskly and never makes things overly complex. We’re never even told what agencies these two work for. It’s a simple story, told efficiently by screenwriter Simon Kinberg, Editor Michael Tronick, and director Doug Liman. And the action sequences are awesome. They’re well paced and truly inventive, and often quite intense. Particularly fun is a car chase/shootout that manages to avoid all the usual car chase clichés. (Well, okay, the bad guys don’t aim directly at the tires, so there’s still that one. But at least there isn’t the average moment where the chase goes the wrong way down a one-way stretch of road. That gag is about as fresh as a vending machine sandwich.) It’s a film that seems to have studied and mastered the fine art of the shootout. God, I’ve missed cinematic shootouts. I’d begun to think that they may have died out sometime in the mid-90’s. The film has a pretty high body count, which befits a movie about two assassins but comes a surprise when you consider the film’s PG-13 rating. And, due to Brad and Angelina (both of whom not only do some of their finest acting work but also look better than either of them ever have) the film generates a palpable sexual undercurrent as well.

The ending is a bit flimsy and leaves a few loose ends untied and Vince Vaughn, while funny, is given perhaps a bit too much screen time and not enough to do with it. I mean, he’s good and all, but compared to Brad and Angelina and everything they’re up to…who cares? I did like Adam Brody (of the “O.C.” television series) however, in his small role as someone that both Brad and Angelina are assigned to dispose of. It’s a nice touch to see him wearing a “Fight Club” shirt while Brad Pitt is interrogating him. Plus, veteran character actor Keith David could have used a bit more screen time. Why hire this total man if you’re only going to give him a scene or two? He’s not even in it enough for me to determine whether or not he did a good job. Oh well. At least he got some work.

As an action movie, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” isn’t starting a cinematic revolution. It’s not redefining what action films are all about. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun, surprisingly witty, and it’s one of the sexiest movies I’ve ever seen. (Then again, I’m beginning to think that watching Angelina Jolie do a crossword puzzle in a parka would be fairly sexy.) Brad and Angelina are both doing the sort of quirky work that makes them so interesting (especially when the film surrounding them gives them adequate support) and they play off each other exceptionally well. Brad gives the sort of fun, oddball performance he gave in “Fight Club” and “Snatch”. And Angelina kicks a lot more ass a lot more effectively than she did in either “Tomb Raider” flick.

I don’t know if these two are actually an item off screen, but I can tell you this: if they’re not, then they’re extremely good actors. And the two of them make a better couple than either of them did with Jennifer Aniston or Billy Bob Thornton.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2005 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.