Sex! Violence! Tabloids! A Very Guilty Pleasure

Rating: 7/10 (8 November 2007)

I loved this movie.
It's big, loud, and the source of endless tabloid cover stories. There are lots of explosions, and there's not a single profound line in the movie. Much of its appeal is purely superficial: you get to stare at Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in fabulous costumes, and the shreds of those costumes, for two hours.
It's also funny and smart and stylish.
Brad Pitt is terrific. I never really understood his appeal before. I do now. He has a great gift for deadpan comedy.
Can Angelina Jolie act? If she can, she doesn't show it here. But, as everybody knows, men like to look at her, so what else is there to say about Angelina Jolie? (Yes, I would have liked to have seen a woman who is both beautiful and something of an actress, but you can't have everything.) The chemistry between Pitt and Jolie would be obvious to the dead. Jennifer Aniston never had a chance. Pitt and Jolie were fated to be together.
This movie is sort of a pumped-up version of movies like "His Girl Friday" in which Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell sparred over work while also working out marital issues common to all couples. Here, of course, the marital issues are worked out through the two leads' careers as high-priced assassins.
It makes no sense at all except as a big, sexy prank. John and Jane compare numbers -- not how many people they slept with before they got married, but how many people they've assassinated.
The ending falls flat, but, other than that, it works.