Mr. and Mrs. Smith Review
By Joe Lozito
"Smith" and Jestin'
It's kind of nice to know that there are still some movie stars out there that can carry a film solely on their looks. This quality is what the term star power is all about. And "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, has star power to spare.
I'm trying to remember the last time Brad Pitt really bit into a role. Wisely ignoring "Troy", one might have to go back to 1999's "Fight Club" to find a performance by Mr. Pitt that is more than just mugging. I'm not complaining, mind you. It's possible that Mr. Pitt has found what he does best: being Brad Pitt. Like Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart or Jack Nicholson, for example, Brad Pitt may have created enough of a persona to be a character unto himself. Though he needs to be careful, he's starting to rely so much on his trademark mumble that he's becoming unintelligible.
As for Angelina Jolie, well, let's just say I even went to see the "Lara Croft" movies. Both of them. Ms. Jolie is not an untalented actress, but she really doesn't even have to try to grab the screen; it just happens whenever she's around.
And so, put these two actors together, and what do you have? Well, if you're "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", you have a one-joke action-comedy with two really attractive co-stars and a few good laughs. After a flawed opening which is such a slight parody of "When Harry Met Sally" that it might be unintentional, "Smith" tells the story of two assassins who don't realize that they're husband and wife until they're both sent to kill the same target.
If you're willing to buy the premise, there are a few good moments in the film, like when the titular spies discuss their martial woes during a car chase. The script by Simon Kinberg gets some mileage out of the film's conceit by poking fun at the conventions of the spy genre, but director Doug Liman has difficulty straddling the line between comedy and action. It may be that neither star wanted to stray too far from their image, but "Smith" never quite reaches the heights of great comedy or great action the way James Cameron's "True Lies" did.
The film's climax degenerates into an oddly uninvolving shoot-out. At that point, the characters have nothing left to say, and neither does the film. Though, in the end, I'm not sure it ever really did. It was mostly content to sit back and watch its stars go. More or less, so are we.
