CNS Movie Review: Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

By Harry Forbes
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- The publicity would have you think "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (20th Century Fox) is a delightful throwback to the sophisticated screwball comedies of an earlier era. Well, don't believe a word of it.

This is a loud, excessively violent exercise in mindless mayhem. On top of that, it's a plodding and uninvolving, not to mention woefully unfunny, vehicle.

The film begins promisingly with its two eye-candy stars -- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie -- speaking to an unseen marriage counselor about their troubled relationship, though already they seem oddly unconvincing as a couple, a bad omen for a film that needs to rely on good chemistry as much as anything else.

Their characters, John and Jane, meet in exotically dangerous circumstances -- a shootout in Bogota, Colombia -- and before long they marry and set up house in an oddly sterile version of suburbia. John and Jane each think the other one has an "ordinary" job, but in fact each is a hired assassin working for rival organizations.

We see both of them plying their trade: Jane, disguised as a dominatrix, meets a target, and before they can get down to their salacious business, she breaks his neck. John, playing drunk, intrudes on a backroom poker game of presumed villains, and at the crucial moment guns them all down. Yuck.

Six years into their marriage, they're both sent on a mission -- the same one, as it happens -- to kill their prey in the desert, and realize they're not alone in their quest. Though they don't at first recognize each other, it's only a matter of time before they do.

Then, without the slightest sense of underlying affection, each sets out to kill the other, and goes about it with every piece of artillery and weaponry at their disposal.

Normally, in this kind of setup, the attempt by one to bump off the other would be played halfheartedly, but not by this duo. Apart from a slight twinge of guilt when Jane tries to incinerate John in an elevator, the pair is deadly serious. With poison, guns, explosives and sheer brute force, they try to annihilate each other. One of the most offensive scenes has John viciously kicking Jane.

It's probably not too much of a spoiler to tell you that eventually, when neither succeeds in getting the upper hand, they realize they love each other after all, and (after a bit of rough sexual foreplay) join forces to take on the "bad guys," which is a cue for more ear-splitting explosions, gunfire, violent car chases and the like.

Director Doug Liman's stylized but unstylish action film is a trashy glorification of violence and ugly brutality, and pushes the limits of its PG-13 rating, to put it mildly.

The film is only fitfully watchable thanks to the attractiveness of its stars who, as noted, fail to strike sparks. Jolie has some old-fashioned Hollywood glamour and an intriguing persona. Pitt is an amiable cipher.

Simon Kinberg's script, apart from being almost completely lacking in genuine humor, the occasional quirky line notwithstanding, has not even a smidgen of that necessary reality which would ground the improbable proceedings. Liman seems more concerned with the high-tech gadgetry and special effects.

This is an unusually distasteful film. Bring back Nick and Nora Charles.

The film contains relentless violence, brutal murders, profanity, crude language, sexual situations and banter, suggestive costuming and implied premarital sex. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents are strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

END

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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