A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

Mr & Mrs Smith, if you can ignore the ubiquitous gossip surrounding Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is actually an enjoyable movie. If enjoyable is a) you go in with eyes wide open that this is not a Woody Allen comedy about the marital travails between a man and a woman who happen to be assassins, b) you do expect this to be a BLSM - Big Loud Stupid Movie, c) Angelina Jolie is gorgeous, period. (Okay…in the interest of balance, so is Brad Pitt).

With that in mind, director Doug Liman delivers some of the best car chases and shoot-outs as well as some decent comedic moments seen on cinema. Spoilers ahead.

Liman treats this first as a black comedy very much like what he did with Swingers. In that movie, he follows a man getting over the break-up with his girlfriend with his buddies. In Mr & Mrs Smith, Liman follows the title characters as they reach a turning point in their marriage: will they break-up or not? The twist here of course is that the two characters are both top assassins. Good-looking assassins. As the two seek marriage counselling “five or six years” worth of secrets and lies boil over. How do assassins work out their pent up anger? By expending tons of bullets and taking down half the neighborhood of course.

Liman manages to pull off one of the most entertaining car chases seen on screen to date: the freeway chase on that sub-urban staple, the mini-van. The exchange between Pitt and Jolie was gold, while fighting off nameless bad guys. Needless to say, it was a creative use of the mini-van. Liman never lets up on the tension of the action while still playing the scene for laughs.

And of course there’s Brad and Angie. Who would rather look at on the big screen than these two? (For me, just Angelina actually…) No one else brings up the glamour and the glitz of Hollywood more than these two people. Granted I’m not a big fan of Pitt (never understood why my girl friends swoon over him. I’m mean sure he’s got the body…the face… I mean what else is there? Heh) I enjoyed his *ahem* performance in the movie. He plays it light like his Rusty character in Ocean’s Eleven and Twelve. I mean exactly like Rusty. To be fair he brings the right physicality to the role. You can believe he can shoot a gun or plan an assassination right? Right.

Jolie plays it calm. She is after all playing a suburban housewife. Even while she’s planning a mission with a bunch of female assassins (wouldn’t you like to be an intern in that office?) it was like some twisted Tupperware party. Sure she’s an assassin - she plays it butch but she’s never ever not feminine. Liman of course shoots her in such as counter-point to Pitt’s brash Mr. Smith. She cool and collected even in the face of danger. That scene of her sliding down the side of a building in a leather coat was sexier than of any scene from both Tomb Raider movies. Oh and to see her go clock that guy from the O.C. was worth the price of the ticket for me.

I have to mention Vince Vaughn’s role as Pitt’s buddy Eddie. Vaughn, a Liman veteran from Swingers, supplies much of the comedic moments. Picturing him as an assassin living with his mother was hilarious. Picturing him going off on missions with his emotional baggage and unique outlook on life is even funnier. He even gives Pinoys a mention. During Eddie’s discussion with John Smith near the beginning of the film where the latter recounts to Eddie that he didn’t complete a mission because someone else interfered with his plans. After John gave a general description of the person, Eddie suggests it might a Filipino.

Overall, Mr & Mrs Smith is an entertaining, popcorn movie. Got a two hours to kill? This will do nicely. It doesn’t pretend to be any more than its comic-booky premise promises it would deliver: good looking people, loud explosions, exciting car-chases, funny bits and a tidy ending.