This movie was unfairly received by most critics

Rating: 8/10 (19 March 2006)

This is a much better film than most critics gave it credit for being. It got mediocre reviews from a bunch of people who tried to read it as a straight action movie. But it's not an action movie. It's a marriage movie. The violence, the lethality, and the misdirected aggression are all deliberately ironic: They're symbolic of things that most married couples, including most happy ones, actually feel from time to time.
If you watch this film is a straight action pic, it's still perfectly entertaining. Pitt and Jolie come across as both romantic and sympathetic, which is impressive given the nature of their characters.
But if you (the watcher) are married, and particularly if you're approaching about 7 years in that blissful state, then you are one of the people for whom this movie was made. Watch it together with your ball-and-chain, or, if you prefer, "the one you love." The movie captures both the eternal frustration and suffering of marriage, as well as the things that nevertheless keep women and men together, and at least intermittently, happy.