MR AND MRS SMITH

US, 2005, 110 minutes, Colour.
Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, Kerry Washington.
Directed by Doug Liman.

This is one of those films which those who enjoy refer to as ‘a guilty pleasure’. So, this review is a guilty plea!

Some reviewers have taken the plot and characterisations very seriously indeed. But, that did not seem to be the point of the film. This is a soufflé tinged with gunpowder. To examine the behaviour of the central couple, the anonymous John and Jane Smith, Mr and Mrs, for moral judgment is to miss the jokeyness – and everything can be the subject of humour. Of course, it’s the how it’s all done is the ultimate criterion.

Like James Bond, whom everybody learned decades ago not to take as a serious dramatic hero, Mr and Mrs Smith have ‘licenses to kill’. While every marriage has its secrets, this is a rather large one that each has been hiding from the other for ‘about five years’ as he says, ‘exactly six’ as he says. It is just as well that the film starts with the couple in marriage counselling sessions because when they are assigned, as you know they will be, to eliminate the other, then mayhem breaks loose. If you like it, that’s the joke. What do Mr and Mrs Smith do? Outwitting the other, of course. Spying on the other, of course. A huge lethal brawl – maybe more vigorous than we anticipated. Happy ending and reconciliation after discovering the pep in their lives. Naturally.

So, depending on your attitude towards the basic joke, the screenplay is very amusing (or not). Opting for the amusing stance, I thought that Brad Pitt excels at this kind of comedy (The Mexican, the Oceans’ films – much better than running around Troy). He has good timing and communicates the humour cleverly, especially during therapy. Angelina Jolie looks and sounds smart and is given a wardrobe that ought to have made Mr Smith suspicious only he is not very observant about these matters. And Vince Vaughn turns in one of his better and funnier supporting friend roles.

Director Doug Liman made his name with a twenty-somethings identity and socialising comedy, Swingers, and went on to surprise people by making a good job of The Bourne Identity. This has the touch of a combination of the two.

1. The title, its seeming simplicity, ordinariness? The joke with the anonymous Mr and Mrs Smith signing in anywhere?

2. The frothy style of the film, the throwback to the 30s screwball comedies, the battle of the sexes, the jokiness, marriage and action combined?

3. The glossy colour photography, the prologue in the counsellor’s office, the focus on John and Jane? The anonymous interviewer? The opening out to New York City, the action sequences in the desert? The interiors and affluence and style?

4. The editing, the pace, the action sequences, the stunt-work, the different moods, the score?

5. The counselling framework, John and his “five or six years”, Jane and her precision with “six”? The indications of the relationship, blame, responsibility? The contrast with the end – and John’s final joke with his fingers?

6. Each in the counselling situation, the precision of Jane, the vagueness of John? The situation in Bogota, the restaurant, the shootings? Both of them present? Not suspecting each other? The attraction, the dance, the sexual encounter? Their marriage – and the video? The shift to the present, their meals at home, his not really appreciating her cooking, her stylish meals? The irony that she never cooked any of them? Each of them at work? The discussion about the house, the decoration, the curtains, the bathroom scenes, the bed, the cars, each going off to work?

7. Brad Pitt as John, the intuitive type, vague in detail? At work, his friendship with Eddie? The various mishaps, the neighbours and their watching? Getting home for meals? His encounter with the drunk, with Lucky, going to his arsenal, the assassination?

8. Jane and Angelina Jolie’s style, fashionable, clothes, her office, state of the art? Her quick decision-making? Getting home, the meals on the table, the tensions, the curtains, the domestic scenes? The irony of her going out, her becoming the Dominatrix, the client, her arsenal, the assassination?

9. The neighbours, the dress, the baby? The parties and their seeming ordinary couple in suburbia? The chatter, the neighbours, running through the shrubs, the cars?

10. The tongue-in-cheek screenplay, the wit of the film, its humour, blending the ordinary with the extraordinary?

11. Each of them getting a mission, their respective cover, teams? The jeeps, the desert, the binoculars and each watching the other? The irony of the mission to destroy each other? The bait, the escape, later? Prison, the hostage, the truth? The irony of the hostage and the audience seeing him in the department, being given the job, wanting promotion? His being interrogated – and the irony of his being part of the set-up?

12. Each investigating the opposite, each discovering the truth, the computer and addresses, the scanning, the different reactions? The respective phone calls? Dinner at seven as usual, John being wary of poisoning? The knives in the kitchen…?

13. The ultimate confrontation, in the buildings, the explosions, elevator, the chases and crashes, in the restaurant, the irony of the dancing, the explosion, the pocket bombs? Each really trying to kill the other? The shoot-out in the house, from room to room? The truce, the sexual attraction?

14. Combining forces, relying on Eddie, the attack, their being caught in their underwear, the store? The body count and the jokes? The mission to the hostage and surviving?

15. Eddie, as a friend, working with John, his relationship with women, his dependence on his mother, the dominating mother jokes?

16. Jasmine and Jane’s staff, their support, their help?

17. The excitement and the danger – and the humour of the final counselling session and the marriage saved?

18. Some critics being severe on the amount of violence – and the possibility of taking the whole thing seriously or treating it as a joke like the James Bond stories?