Flying bullets...and wisecracks

Rating: 5/10 (1 February 2007)

Slick like a magazine ad (and sometimes just as crass), this commercial hybrid of "Prizzi's Honor" and "Mission: Impossible" is too high-tech for its own good--the movie's real assets get swallowed up by the monstrous over-production. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been married six years, but neither knows the other is a hired assassin; once their secrets are revealed, they consider killing each other. The cute, likable characters and canny marriage-humor nearly get lost once the picture becomes little more than car crashes and a barrage of gunfire. Still, though the midsection does plod, the finale is well-crafted and the chemistry between Pitt and Jolie is almost enough to compensate for the heavy overall feeling of action-flick redux. ** from ****