*** (out of ****)
Starring Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, Kerry Washington, Adam Brody, and Keith David
Directed by Doug Liman & written by Simon Kinberg
2005
120 min PG13
�Do you ever have any trouble sleeping afterwards?� the wife-assassin asks the husband-assassin. �No,� he says. And that�s how it should be. As soulless, mass-produced, super-slick Hollywood entertainments go, �Mr. and Mrs. Smith� ranks ahead of the recent glut of comic book movies but behind the �Ocean�s� flicks. Don�t fool yourself: no one came to Hollywood with nothing but pluck, the money in his pocket, and a screenplay for �Mr. and Mrs. Smith.� Still, it�s not the end of the world to see a movie that isn�t trying to change your life, every now and then.
Even if the previews tell you otherwise, �Mr. and Mrs. Smith� is not a spy movie at all. It�s a fluffy piece of wish fulfillment for all the couples who�ve ever felt their marriage stagnate. Which is to say, every couple that hasn�t gotten a divorce. All that�s missing (and rightfully so) are the two of them waking up at the end. What wife hasn�t felt like beating her fella to pieces? What husband hasn�t been so frustrated by the status quo that he feels like razing their house to the ground? What couple doesn�t need a good screaming match every now-and-again to breech the inevitable distance, resulting in the sense of �starting over?� What couple doesn�t feel like it met long ago in exotic, easier, and more dashing times, and now feels it is under attack by a thousand voices saying �don�t be married!�? Few couples ever see those voices take up submachine guns and nightvision goggles, but whatever.
The Smiths (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) are trapped in a suburban routine, with a vast, unspoken gulf growing between them. (�Could you pass the salt?� �The salt is in the middle of the table.�) But it turns out they�re both secret agents, each working for competing agencies, and they�ve never known it! Hurrah! The movie is divided into three distinct acts. First, neither of the Smiths know about the other�s double life, and we see them sneaking past each other to go off and save (or attack) the free world. Then they find out about each other and it�s killing time. Then they join forces. Pitt works at a junkshop of dirty masculinity, where he and his unshaven cohort (an uncredited Vince Vaughn) trade deadpan barbs. Jolie works in all-babe central; think the femme pilots from �Goldfinger� updated by Victoria�s Secret. Then try to spot the chick from �House M.D.�
Pitt is essentially playing the same low-talking and capable smoothie from �Ocean�s Eleven� and Jolie of the Giant Lips keeps up (just like her father, it can be said that she has �a real purty mouth�). Director Doug Liman (�The Bourne Identity�) does his best Soderbergh impersonation: all the jokes are played low, quick, and under-the-breath, beneath quick edits, shaky handheld camerawork, and giddy pop music. This is a movie that needs to be pumping ahead; if we were given any dead time to reward the actors for their witticisms they just wouldn�t be funny. It�s not so much that the one-liners are so good as that we enjoy the atmosphere of nonchalant delivery. I like that we�re not expected to care about anybody or anything on the screen. �Mr. and Mrs. Smith� knows the score: we�re here to have a good time, some laughs and some thrills, and we don�t need any sugary stuff getting in the way. Limon made his first splash with �Swingers,� a movie that he urgently wanted to make, but this movie and his �Bourne Identity� are the work of a seasoned professional, about seasoned professionals, and they don�t really ask us to feel.
I also like how �Mr. and Mrs. Smith� leaves out everything it doesn�t need. The lack of specificity concerning John and Jane Smith make their problems seem universal. They never get real names. The ideologies of the agencies and their spies are never specified; we never know if they�re fighting for good or for awesome. The result is that we don�t really learn anything about the marriage of the Smiths, but just marriage in general. No, really, they only have two �special memories,� and they�re awfully generic. They don�t have �their song,� �their story,� or recurrent �catch phrases.� And, of course, no one seems to care how many times logic is pushed aside for a setpiece or a good spat. I�d like to live in a neighborhood where twenty minutes of machinegun fire only summons two neighbors and couple beat cops. No, wait, I would hate to live there.
And what was the last Hollywood movie to celebrate marriage besides just before the closing credits, anyway? �The Thin Man?� I jest. It was probably �True Lies,� the Schwarzenegger vehicle with a virtually identical plot as �Smith.� Pitt has the Schwarzenegger role, Tom Arnold is the wisecracking buddy, and since the governator and �True Lies� director James Cameron lean a little righter than Doug Liman, the wife was a wife and not a spy. Or maybe it was just a different time�a simpler, more innocent 1994. There�s a good essay in how �True Lies��cumbersome at 140+ minutes and surprisingly maudlin�gave way over a dozen years later to the slick, unfeeling efficiency of �Mr. and Mrs. Smith.�
One day, in a moment of snootiness, I might regret going three stars on �Mr. and Mrs. Smith.� But any movie that makes me nudge my wife because of something the husband says, and makes her want to squeeze my arm and say �I wuv voo!� must be doing something right. Plus there�s this great look that Pitt gives the camera on the dance floor�oh, see for yourself. �Mr. and Mrs. Smith� is a good date movie for that couple that�s too busy to see more than three movies a year. It�s best at one of those theaters where you can get a meal and a drink, or rented and watched with a bottle of wine.
Finished Tuesday, June 14th, 2005
Copyright � 2005 Friday & Saturday Night
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