No Mr. or Mrs. Smith, living in the proverbial leafy suburb, going to work each day in a sensible car, joining the neighbours on weekends for beers and a BBQ, ever looked like this ...
That’s the first joke in director Doug Liman’s stylish and slyly funny Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie – surely two of the most attractive people on the planet – play the Smiths. Dictionary definitions of beautiful – these two are. Smokin’ hot, to employ a more street-level vernacular. (Maybe they didn’t look quite so good picking up roasted chicken in the Spruce Grove Safeway in September, but this is the movies, baby. The Mr. and Mrs. Smith budget was reported to be north of 10 figures – the makeup people earned their money.)
The second joke is that they play hired assassins – and they don’t know what the other does for a living. He thinks she’s a systems analyst; she believes he toils as a construction contractor (a very successful one, of course).
A big hit during the summer season, Mr. and Mrs. Smith could have gone very wrong for Pitt and Jolie. This was the movie shoot that allegedly turned Pitt into an adulterer and Jolie into a homewrecker. It made “poor Jen’’ (as in Aniston, married to Pitt at the time, a victim. Poor Jen appears to have recovered quite nicely, but I was never that worried).
Who really cares whether Pitt and Jolie did or didn’t do it, or when they did or didn’t do it, but the studio was likely seriously concerned that audiences might have punished this comely pair by staying away from their movie. Although that concern seems pitifully silly, doesn’t it? We don’t live in 1957. And, as it turned out, there was no need to worry – Mr. and Mrs. Smith, available on DVD this week, earned a hefty $186 million US at the box office.
Give credit to the stars, at the peak of their physical attractiveness and their appeal as movie stars. Both as characters and actors, Pitt and Jolie seem to understand the potency of their physical charms, and they have a playful sense of humour about it that complements the film’s tone. As for chemistry, it’s hard to deny. Either that, or they are much better actors than we thought.
Liman, the skilful director of Go and The Bourne Identity, eschewed the dark humour inherent in the material and went for a lighter approach. This is not a black comedy – not nearly as black as War of the Roses – but is instead playful and charming.
The film is at its best early, sketching the enervating details of the Smiths’ five – or is it six? – year marriage. That’s a running joke that many married couples can appreciate, along with the way the Smiths struggle for dinner-time conversation and admit to their therapist, with a good degree of embarrassment, that sex is not happening as frequently or with the same intensity that it once did.
Even when Liman starts to ramp up the proceedings, it’s still fun to watch the way the Smiths destroy their home or do a full-contact tango, all the while delivering banter that may not be worthy of Hepburn and Tracy, but is not bad by our diminished standards for repartee.
Only when Liman gives into this Bourne Supremacy side does Mr. and Mrs. Smith become a familiar-looking action movie, with stock chase and shootout sequences. Actually, the movie veers out of control, running at least 20 minutes too long and sacrificing any wit or style for screen mayhem. We know how it’s going to end – we are fine with that – so get to it.
When the movie is on – the likes of Vince Vaughn and The O.C.’s Adam Brody also contribute welcome comic moments – we like hanging out with the beautiful people.
Even if we know there is no doubt they are going to end up together.
How could they resist?
MR. AND MRS. SMITH – original rating: 41/2 SUNS (out of 5); DVD rating: 3 SUNS
