MR. AND MRS. SMITH

As far as roller coasters go, Mr. & Mrs. Smith isn’t a bad ride. Featuring the most beautiful celebrity couple in the world, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, as rival husband/wife assassins, the film has been billed as War of the Roses meets True Lies. Unfortunately, this big, noisy and occassionally witty action flick is less the former and more the latter.

Director Doug Liman (Swingers, Go, The Bourne Identity) does his best to balance the cutting and clever interplay between his leads with the film’s action scenes, but it’s a losing battle. Hollywood, with its remarkably short attention span, is far more comfortable blowing shit up than building sophisticated stories or memorable characters. That’s a shame, because Mr. & Mrs. Smith has some real meaty opportunities to skewer the competitive ambitions and professional egos that undermine today’s upwardly mobile American marriage.

Pitt and Jolie play John and Jane Smith, a highly successful married couple living in a well-heeled New York City suburb. Working as assassins for rival firms, they hide their professions from one another while trying to keep the conjugal spark alive by attending couples counseling. Unfortunately, when a client double books a hit, John and Jane go after the same target and end up discovering each other’s lethal secret. Suspicions of betrayal lead to high caliber weaponry, and the couple’s domestic strife turns into World War III.

When Liman and screenwriter Simon Kinberg focus on the Smiths’ marital tug of war, the film crackles with tension and humor. Pitt and Jolie rise above their made-for-the-tabloids romance to generate some real sexual chemistry, bouncing convincingly from sly duplicity to deadly one-upmanship to carnal attraction. The stars are clearly having a good time, savoring Kinberg’s snappy dialogue with wicked glee. Too bad the script overdoses on less-than-thrilling action scenes. Liman, who’s quickly proving to be a versatile and intelligent filmmaker, gooses the action with off-kilter shots and inventive camera angles, but there’s no hiding the less-than-inspired car chases and tiresome shoot outs. After the sixth John Woo-inspired gun battle our patience begins to run out even if the leads’ ammo doesn’t.

The script also fails to provide Pitt and Jolie with an identifiable foe or meaningful dramatic closure. The natural conclusion to this couple’s deadly matrimonial tango would push the film into black comedy territory and Hollywood balks at the idea. Instead, the script pits the couple against an endless procession of faceless enemies, followed up by an unconvincing happily-ever-after finale; the story just ends with one big chaotic bang and an emotional snicker.

The supporting cast is surprisingly thin. Vince Vaughn and Kerry Washington play John and Jane Smith’s respective confidants and cohorts, but they’re underdeveloped. Vaughn, uncredited in his role, is actually quite entertaining. Liman makes judicious use of his goofy presence and generates some decent laughs. Washington, on the other hand, barely registers.

One doesn’t look for impeccable logic or tightly woven plotlines in a film like this. Still some attention to story craft would help, as there’s not much of a plot to hang this promising concept on. While Pitt and Jolie’s verbal showdowns and offbeat romance generate the film’s greatest pyrotechnics, the blockbuster action sequences grind everything to a halt. This may be one of the few examples of a big budget action film where the stunts and effects are the least interesting part of the movie.