Mr. & Mrs. Smith

MR. & MRS. SMITH

by Jane Louise Boursaw

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, intense action, sexual content, and brief strong language. 120 minutes. Directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity). Released in theaters June 10, 2005.

Are you sick of Brangelina yet? I certainly am (not that I’ve read every article in every magazine they’ve graced the cover of or anything. Ok, so maybe I have, but they all say the same thing anyway...) At any rate, I still went to see the movie and it was a wonderful way to forget about my problems for a couple of hours.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play John and Jane Smith, a married couple who met in Bogata “five or six” years ago, got married, and settled down in comfortable Suburbia. Here’s the rub: they’re both assassins, only neither one knows about the other (say what? they didn’t do a background check in all those years?). John keeps his impressive arsenal in a room beneath the tool shed. Jane has a smaller stash of guns in trays that slide out from under the oven.

One day, they both receive instructions from their agencies to travel to a remote desert location and take out a mysterious target. They travel there separately, only to discover their targets are each other. At this point, you’re wondering if they’ll try to kill each other, or team up to save their lives. Let me just say this: love hurts.

They choose the first option, culminating in an impressive showdown that levels their house and theoretically should have broken all the bones in their lovely bodies. But they come through unscathed and end up making love, deciding to trust each other, yada, yada, yada... It’s the ultimate assassin foreplay, but it’s also symbolic of typical marital angst in need of a little spice. More action follows, including a wild car chase and explosive shoot-out in an Ikea-type home improvement store. Vince Vaughn and Kerry Washington round out the cast as the couples’ assassin partners.

THE WRAP-UP: No matter what you think of their real-life relationship, there’s no denying that Pitt and Jolie have great on-screen chemistry. Their verbal banter and fight scenes are like finely-choreographed, ass-kicking dances (with Jolie doing it all in high heels!). She gives new meaning to the term “girl-power,” because she gives as good as she gets. This movie won’t change your life, but it’s a great way to spend a couple of hours.