Opening 21 Jul 2005
Directed by:
Doug Liman
Writing credits:
Simon Kinberg
Principal actors:
Brad Pitt, Angellina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, Adam Brody, Kerry Washington
As the camera zooms in on a close up of a marital counseling session, we see a perfectly beautiful male and female sitting in classy professional client chairs. These two people are both amazingly physically fit, dressed to kill and very rich (we learn that later!). This is the picture of Mr. John Smith (Brad Pitt) and Mrs. Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie). I’m thinking, “There is something wrong with this picture! Counseling? Right!”. Well, it appears that they both have a major-ego-complex that gets in the way of establishing grounds for a good marriage. We also find out that their ego is most definitely connected to their job. The counselor asks them, if their spouse knows everything about them and if honesty is an important aspect in their marriage. Ah ha! Here is where the beautiful people start to squirm in their fancy chairs and look a little nervous. They each begin to confess that they do have an obsession that is hidden from their partner. They are most certain that it will not get in the way because they each feel confident that they have masked their secret well. They each admit that they have the perfect set up with marrying the ideal and most naive schmuck!
Discovering the identity of Mr. and Mrs. Smith is inter-mingled with counseling sessions and flashbacks of their secret life which forces them to attempt to obliterate each other. I was assuming this was going to be an intelligent spy comedy, but basically due to the flat characters and bad story line, the audience got nothing but a lot of film footage of male bashing, sad hard sex and unleashed violence. Mr. Liman what were you thinking? (Karen Pecota)
