Mr. & Mrs. Smith

From AwardAnnals

Reviews

Amazon.com

Released amidst rumors of romance between costars Angelina Jolie and soon-to-be-divorced Brad Pitt, Mr. and Mrs. Smith offers automatic weapons and high explosives as the cure for marital boredom. The premise of this exhausting action-comedy (no relation to the 1941 Alfred Hitchcock comedy starring Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery) is that the unhappily married Smiths (Pitt and Jolie) will improve their relationship once they discover their mutually-hidden identities as world-class assassins, but things get complicated when their secret-agency bosses order them to rub each other out. There’s plenty of amusing banter in the otherwise disposable screenplay by Simon Kinberg (xXx: State of the Union, Fantastic Four), and director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) gives Pitt and Jolie a slick, glossy superstar showcase that’s innocuous but certainly never boring. It could’ve been better, but as an action-packed summer confection, Mr. and Mrs. Smith kills two hours in high style. —Jeff Shannon

Barnes and Noble

Media coverage of the dissolution of Brad Pitt’s marriage to Jennifer Aniston and his subsequent attachment to Angelina Jolie, his costar in this loud and lively action comedy, unfortunately overshadowed the film itself. Pitt and Jolie portray the titular spouses, both of whom lead secret lives on the side—unbeknownst to the other—as assassins for competing interests. Assigned to the same hit, they get in each other’s way and blow the job, leading to a spy-vs.-spy showdown that only exacerbates their growing dissatisfaction with their marriage. Their long-simmering antipathy turns deadly, with a supposedly quiet dinner at home erupting into open warfare. Of course, the joke is on them: Their respective employers want them both dead and are prepared to deploy hit squads to take out the survivor. Director Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) is not exactly subtle or restrained in his staging of action scenes, and this film’s armed confrontations are nothing short of cyclonic in their speed and intensity. The chemistry between Pitt and Jolie, however, is palpable, which lends the needed credibility—and a leavening dollop of insouciance—to one of the most patently absurd plots committed to celluloid in many a moon. Vince Vaughn adds his trademark wisecracking humor to the characterization of a hit man who lives with his mother, and the effectiveness of his contribution shouldn’t be underestimated. (You, too, will be forgiven for wondering what was in the water on this shoot, in light of Vaughn’s subsequent courting of the soon-to-be-erstwhile Mrs. Pitt.) But the whole show is watching Pitt and Jolie beat the heck out of each other, so if that’s your idea of a good time—and we can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be—this rapid-paced romp ought to be right up your alley. Ed Hulse