BEFORE: Almost finished with spy films - 2 Brad Pitt films are going to get me close to movie #700. I've seen plenty of films with regular people drawn into the spy scene, so this almost seems like something of a twist - two married spies pretending that they're NOT spies...
THE PLOT: A bored married couple is surprised to learn that they are both assassins hired by competing agencies to kill each other.
AFTER: OK, so they're assassins. Spies, assassins - Hollywood treats them pretty much the same. They work for the "company", who knows if that's the CIA or the FBI or some shadow agency...I guess that John and Jane Smith in this film work for two different Companies - does that mean that one of them is the enemy? I mean, if they were both working for the U.S. government, they'd be on the same side, right?
Is it believable? Of course not - this is a fake Hollywood interpretation of what it might be like to be an assassin (see "Wanted" for more unbelievability) - which means that the characters are essentially cartoon-like stereotypes. That doesn't mean that the movie isn't fun or exciting, it's just almost completely unrealistic. The stunts are amazing, and there's enough action scenes for two movies.
I guess it's campy fun, if you're in the right mood (I kinda was...) but it starts with unlikely (two spies meet and get married) and spirals into further ridiculousness from there. My other major complaint is that the story arc, the film's three acts, are so predictable. First act - hide their secret lives from each other. Second act - try to kill each other. Gee, you don't suppose that in the third act they'll have to put aside their differences and work together against a common enemy?
Hmm, there's a helicopter shot at the start of this film that, according to the IMDB, was originally filmed for "Clear and Present Danger", last night's film - what are the odds of that?
Starring Brad Pitt (last heard in "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas"), Angelina Jolie (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda"), Vince Vaughn (last seen in "Be Cool"), Adam Brody (last seen in "Thank You For Smoking"), and Kerry Washington (last seen in "Bad Company") with cameos from Keith David (last seen in "Hollywood Homicide"), Stephanie March, Michelle Monaghan (last seen in "The Bourne Supremacy"), and the voice of William Fichtner (last seen in "Heat") as the marriage counselor.
RATING: 6 out of 10 zip-lines
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