Suburban Warfare
Mr. & Mrs. Smith Offers Up Humor and Bullets

Into each summer comes that one movie that, on the surface, seems completely without merit and becomes a pleasant surprise. For me, the surprise came early with the arrival of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's guns and grins action flick, Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Hit man John Smith (Brad Pitt) is having second thoughts about his sweet suburban wife in the action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith. (Warner Bros, 2005)
Directed by: Doug Liman
Written by: Simon Kinberg
Starring: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, Adam Brody, and Kerry Washington

Rated PG-13 (for sequences of violence, intense action, sexual content and brief strong language)
Running time: 120 min.

FilmGuru's Rating : 8 out of 10.

When the trailer for Mr. & Mrs. Smith first ran in theaters, I said to my wife "Why bother?" The trailer had shown so much that the plot from beginning to end seemed clear. Everyone I spoke with who had seen the trailer assumed the same plot.

The film does, in fact, follow the seemingly formulaic plan as previewed in the advertisements. What the film offers, though, is a rich blend of action and comedy that surprised me, coupled with an elegant grace that matches the slickest of James Bond adventures.

Beginning in a couples therapy session, Mr. and Mrs. Smith seems more like a quirky comedy than an action movie. As the therapist asks simple questions about their marriage John (Pitt) and Jane (Jolie) can not even agree on how long they have been together. "Five years," he says. "Six," she corrects him. "Five or six years," he agrees. And so, when the flashback begins it is humorously titled "Five or six years ago."

The comedy is dry, witty, and even a little subtle. The two live in perfect suburban domesticity. He is a contractor. She is a computer consultant. They both travel a lot, get calls at odd hours, but still manage to make it home in time for dinner together. Yet, each is lying about who they really are.

The inevitable discovery of secrets is not nearly as humorous as the resulting attempts at reconciliation. When John takes off after Jane, he chases her through the neighborhood as she drives off. It would seem romantic if not for the pistol in his hand. When he manages to get into the car, she bails out and watches as her car careens through a barricade and off a cliff. So, it's not love, exactly.

Despite the normal trappings of the genre, when the two opponents finally wise up and decide to work together for the sake of survival, it never becomes predictable. The story continues to throw in several jokes on suburban life.

Pitt and Jolie play the characters perfectly. Each is cool and focused, so when the humor presents itself it is twice as funny. Vince Vaughn makes an excellent cameo as John's business associate and best friend, Eddie. His "shoot first" on-the-edge mentality is such the opposite of John's demeanor that it adds to the comedy of any situation.

Like any good James Bond movie, there is a fair amount of seduction in this film. The interesting part here is that it is a seduction between a man and a woman who (despite living together for five years as husband and wife) know almost nothing about each other. Pitt and Jolie heat up the screen with a wild abandon that borders on sadomasochism. Guns and bullets act as foreplay, and the sex is as rough as hand-to-hand combat.

This is a film that will be worth watching again when it comes out on DVD. It's an exciting action film, but the comedy is what makes it worth seeing twice.