In the annals of big-budget Hollywood movies — if, indeed, there are people retentive of such annals -- Mr. and Mrs. Smith is likely to be remembered chiefly for the tabloid coverage surrounding the alleged off-screen coupling of its on-screen couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But leashing it beside such mangled mutts as Gigli and Proof of Life would be a bit unfair, for the movie, while far from a masterpiece, is no dog — at least, not by the standards of what's shaping up to be a lackluster year at the movies.
By now you undoubtedly know that Pitt and Jolie portray Joe and Jane Smith, clandestine assassins who work for competing (and nameless) agencies. The affluent, bored husband and wife have kept their lethal professions a secret from each other, but that changes when their paths cross over a job that both of them bungle. As a result, John and Jane are assigned to kill one another.
Like the song says, it's a thin line between love and hate. Mr. and Mrs. Smith is at its cleverest when it riffs on the little secrets that whittle away at marital bliss. Perhaps the secrets harbored by the Smiths involve more of a body count than do those of most couples (we hope), but the resulting detachment and ennui isn't so alien. And so beneath the silliness is a parable of marriage that actually resonates.
Well, it resonates some. Simon Kinberg's screenplay doesn't exactly break new ground exploring post-coitus rage. Pictures such as Prizzi's Honor and The War of the Roses boasted much more cutting satire, but Kinberg excels at witty double meanings. "I missed you today," John tells his wife at the dinner table. "I missed you, too," she responds wryly. Such moments help make up for Kinberg's weirdly stale depiction of domestic matrimony. With its post-work martinis, sniping over new drapes and the like, Mr. and Mrs. Smith 's dated take on suburbia is dangerously close to that of the God-awful Stepford Wives remake).
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