Review: Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Rated PG-13 | 120 mins

IMDB Info

I have no problem with a single movie taking on two genres—Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda offers proof of this—as long as it handles both of them well. Mr. & Mrs. Smith wants to be both a comedy and an action film, but only masters the former genre. It does contain several inspired moments of the latter, but its abundance of shoot-outs and chase-scenes grows tiring and, as a result, the whole of the movie does too.

Directed by Doug Liman, whose impressive resume also includes Go and The Bourne Identity, the movie realizes that it is a style-over-substance extravaganza of the highest degree and uses such to its advantage. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play John and Jane Smith, two married assassins who have no idea that they are working for competing organizations until they are hired to kill each other. As leads, the two are profoundly sexy together and share overflowing chemistry. Throughout Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this allows the dynamic between them to be both romantic and humorous, deliciously consumable for even the most cynical of all audience members. Not to mention, the fact that they are dating in real-life adds to the film’s charm. Aided by some terrific one-liners penned by screenwriter Simon Kinberg, Pitt and Jolie couldn’t sizzle any more onscreen. During all of its first and the majority of its second act, I was ready to proclaim that Mr. & Mrs. Smith was the best movie of its sort to come out of Hollywood in years.

But then the action-overkill started. For nearly forty-five minutes, the cat-and-mouse chase between John and Jane, which is certainly expertly crafted, is thrilling and fun. However, there are few action scenes of this caliber found in the last third of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Pitt and Jolie’s talents take a backseat to special effects; there is probably fifty times more gunshots than there is lines of dialogue. The escapist fun found earlier in the film is replaced by utterly ridiculous, redundant, and boring excess. Still, even considering this, Mr. & Mrs. Smith will make for a terrific DVD rental in the future. While beset by juvenile tendencies in the end, its sportive, saucy first half ultimately makes it a worthwhile experience.