A charming tale of a crumbling marriage - Mr. & Mrs. Smith Reviews

?Mr. & Mrs. Smith? opens with John and Jane Smith (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) undergoing a round of marital therapy. The counselor asks the couple, ?How long have the two of you been married,? to which John replies ?five years? and Jane, ?six?. The two exchange looks that indicate only one of them can be correct (Jolie), while the other (Pitt) severely mistaken. John goes on to say, ?Five or six years.? At this point, only a few minutes have gone by in the movie and already highly effective chemistry has been established between the two principle leads. This chemistry goes on to last the entire two hour running length, never dissipating or showing signs of letting up. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are playing high-class suburban characters and are using their own personal experiences of high-class failed marriages to spark a realistic depiction of a crumbling high-class suburban marriage in a very comedic, very playful manner. It all works and it?s fun to watch these two beautiful people snap at each other, whether such is done verbally or physically with the assistance of high-tech gunplay. And, in short, the film works even when it probably shouldn?t because of this ability to play off each other so well.
Working with such great chemistry, the two are able to make this story a progressively entertaining affair. The suburban life, in which they return to after a day of assassinating targets appointed by their opposing agencies, is where the real fun is at. After all the excitement of killing people and performing daring escapes, each of them come home believing that the other is an authentic, domesticated spouse, when in reality (at least in this film?s reality) they are both staring at reflections of their own, self-generated facades.
When John comes home from work, he wonders if Jane has done something different in the preparation of the night?s meal, to which she replies, ?I added peas.? John nods with the sudden realization and says, ?Ahh, yeah, the greens.? While John was away at work, Jane had taken the time out of her busy schedule to buy curtains for the living room windows; curtains John dislikes and suggests she return. Jane stares at the curtains in contemplation and says, ?You?ll learn to like them.? It?s little instances like these ones that highlight the film more so than the action sequences. The dialogue is witty and between Pitt and Jolie, the exchange of this banter flows so effortlessly, you just have to sit back and watch it go, marveling at the sparks that are flying even when they?re not supposed to. A lot of what makes their arguments fun to watch is that, as an audience, we know that these two are from opposing spy agencies, while the characters are completely oblivious of the fact ? a credit to the film?s writer who structured the script in such a way that the mere setup becomes humorous.
Once the two characters discover each other?s true identity through a hit in which both of them arrive at the same time to kill, the film becomes a different type of engaging. The first 40 minutes of the film were engaging in a romantic-comedy sense, while the middle of the film becomes engaging because this romance is threatened by a sudden realization of who these two people really are. Even so, the situation is approached in a darkly humorous way and is nicely interwoven into the thriller aspects of the story ? the comedic undertone remains consistent throughout the picture. One of my favorite scenes in ?Mr. & Mrs. Smith? is when the two confront each other to discuss their dilemma while dancing at a high-class restaurant. Both feel betrayed, both answer questions with more questions, and both realize that they were a part of a ?five or six? year job. All of this confrontation is done amidst their dancing, which becomes increasingly more violent as their conversation grows more and more personal. Before you know it, the two engage in an all-out, if somewhat brief, war that has them trying to blow each other up, until their guns are aimed at each other at close range, and neither of them can pull the trigger. Their love for each other, turns out, hasn?t died and they demonstrate this with a sexual wrestling match that has them breaking all sorts of furniture.
It?s when the film reaches this point, that it turns into a stunt show that feels like an overblown inconsistency with how the film was originally paced. After kissing, punching, and making up, Pitt and Jolie are faced with their agencies trying, relentlessly, to kill them. For ?Mr. & Mrs. Smith?s? third act, the genre switches gears to a strictly action-picture. The marital banter does indeed still exist at this point of the game, but they are more like commas inserted to punctuate a run-on sentence of repetitive, tedious action. Before, the film had interpreted these government agencies as providing low-key, little attention, incognito assassinations, but when it comes to the agencies trying to assassinate their own, they blow up buildings and shoot at cars on freeways congested with innocent bystanders. What was once a fun and smart film, turns into a completely illogical action film, that may have been fun to watch in its first ten minutes of presentation, but quickly evolves into a boring affair as soon as another minute of the same sequence passes. Just how many ways can a person shoot a gun? Apparently there aren?t nearly enough ways to sustain audience interest, or at least mine.
The final act aside, ?Mr. & Mrs. Smith? is a thoroughly entertaining summer movie that would have benefited greatly from a more low-key, toned down action, rather than the overblown spectacle director Doug Liman opted for. Because the film demonstrates a mastery for the romantic-comedy genre, resorting to a Michael Bay third act (that doesn?t even resolve the dilemma, unless they managed to kill everyone belonging to both agencies mind you) is somewhat insulting. ?Mr. & Mrs. Smith? could have been so much more, but instead decides to be so much more of the same.
RATING: * * *