You never know what a film may ultimately be remembered for. You’d hope that it mostly would be cherished in the minds of audiences for its sharp plot, finely honed characters and a healthy abundance of wit; but sometimes, like in all walks of existence, life intervenes and just does whatever the bloody hell it wants. Is Doug Liman’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith remembered more for merging cheeky spy antics with the intricacies of marriage – or does it hold cultural significance purely because it spilt god-tier amounts of tea and, in the midst of controversy, created the epic name smooshing that became Brangalina?
Further more, if you somehow were able to remove the catchy portmanteau from the equation, would the film still be as relevant? Well I guess it’s time to find out as we use the complex world of international intrigue to cross examine the even more complex world of marriage – but is it ultimately more Mrs. that hits?
John Smith, a “construction executive” and his wife, Jane, an “IT recruiter” are having some marital problems that they’re trying to iron out in therapy. It seems that after 6 years of wedded bliss (also John maintains that it’s 5), the Smiths find that they are experiencing a noticable lack of communication and are constantly firing out of constant acts of micro aggression at each other despite both claiming to be very much in love. But while there could be many reasons why the two are finding it difficult to gel, the main one could probably be that they unknowingly are both skilled contract killers working for different firms.
When they are both assigned by their respective superiors to target and kill a smart mouthed DIA prisoner as he’s being transferred, they find both their private lives colliding messily as the hit is spectacularly botched. But as the two return back to their stifling and claustrophobic marriage still unaware that they both almost killed each other with rocket launchers and planted explosives, a seed has been planted in both of them that soon leads to them discovering the truth.
When that happens, their rapidly stagnating relationship suddenly turns deadly as each become convinced that the other only married them to build up some absurdly long cover story before an inevitable hit. As they try to out-manoeuvre each other by raiding each other’s places of work, soon the couple have to work out their differences face to face and fist to fist. But if the Smith’s are outraged at this situation, imagine what their bosses think after their best agents are revealed to be suddenly and insanely compromised?
Sometimes all a couple needs to fix their issues is to indulge in some mutual interests and take on an entire army of assassins that have been paid to divorce them from life.
As movie concepts go, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is an unadulterated banger. Wittily lancing the frustrations of marriage by having them played out by two trained, international killers, the basic premise of the film that helped give Jennifer Aniston a really shitty 2005 is nothing short of total genius. Imagine if, instead of working through your marital problems with rows and passive agressive acts, you could resolve all your issues and release all your aggression by brawling with your equally trained partner before collapsing into each other’s arms at the end of it? See? Genius. And when you add the red hot coupling of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (sorry Jen) and the director of The Bourne Identity, then surely the movie would have not problems living up to the promise of its central idea.
The thing is, despite all the hype it got and the free publicity it garnered thanks to the metric ton of watercooler gossip it generated, I think that Mr. & Mrs. Smith is only half-successful at fulfilling its brief and other than some legitimately cracking jokes concerning the whole professional killer/marriage thing, the movie is stuck as a fairly generic actioner with an exemplary central pairing. In fact, whenever the film is concentrating squarely on the Smiths as they work their way through the peculiarities of marriage, it’s magnificent – scoring jokes both big and subtle as the movie makes this big, ludicrous story resonate with anyone who has said “I do” whether they kill people for a living or not. Dotted throughout the early parts of the story are the extremely awkward scenes of them in couples therapy that spells out their issues as plain as day.
John – like a lot of Brad Pitt action heroes – is a jocular dude, not too concerned with the complexities of life just as long as the job gets done; on the other hand, Jane – much like a lot of Angelina Jolie action roles – is precise and professional and the pair together almost form a dopey dog/slinky cat type of pairing that’s ripe for comedy. Even better, once they start to suspect each other and the powers of farcical misunderstandings grow, the concept soars even more with 6 (or is it 5) years of frustration bubbling to the surface as the violent wish fulfilment goes into overdrive. Of course, it’s no real surprise to discover that they eventually make up and form a team which ends up giving us a cornerstone image of 00s action cinema as the two stand face to face, blasting away bad guys as their eyes remain locked onto one another in love.
However whenever the movie isn’t working through it’s enjoyably absurd love story, virtually every other aspect of the film is kind of a drag. While it’s bold to keep so much focus on the Smiths, the lack of any real villain to speak of means that any scene that doesn’t focus specifically of their relationship just feels weirdly boring and more than a little clumsy. It’s weird because when you think about it, Liman pretty much rewrote the book when it came to zippy, vital, international intrigue films with the first Bourne movie, and yet here we find the actual plot something of a laboured contrivance that only distracts from the megawatt chemistry of the two leads. Vince Vaughn fast talks and screams his way through a supporting role as John’s typically skeevy friend, Adam Brody cracks wise in a limited role and Kerry Washington squints disapprovingly at monitors, but none of them can ignite even a spark of life into proceedings when not bolstered by either of the main characters. Worse yet, the film is also buffeted mercilessly by an unrelenting score that beefs up the farce without any subtlety whatsoever and its constant presence seems to be trying to nudge you constantly like an annoying cinemagoer with giant elbows that trying to continuously remind you that “THIS IS FUNNY”.
When the publicity entity known as Brangalina are allowed to cut loose with either brutal jabs at the foibles of married life, or making the most of the slick, glib action, Mr. & Mrs. Smith prove to be a fun couple to hang around with. But whenever the offensively attractive leads are distracted by an actual plot, the movie stumbles when it should glide. Partners eh? Can’t live with ’em, can’t survive an attack of a swarm of heavily armed killers without ’em.
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