An Action Packed, Exaggerated, but Effective Metaphor for Marriage in the Modern (jungle) World

Rating: 8/10 (13 June 2005)

The basic plot is of two secret assassins working for opposite agencies but who happen to meet, fall in love, and marry without knowing that they are both assassins for opposing agencies. Assassins, since they have fake identities and jobs, are not supposed to reveal their actual occupations or for whom they work. Such an arrangement, of course, would not encourage much authentic sharing in a marriage. In the beginning, they have the romantic and erotic excitement of their relationship to share, but as all couples find out, the flame of eroticism eventually turns into dying embers and, typically, there is nothing to fan it back to life. Also, beginning couples are satisfying their curiosity about what each other are really like. This 'also' part, of necessity, has to be missing from this ill-fated pairing of the aptly named 'John' and 'Jane' 'Smith'; the secret assassins working for opposing agencies. This movie is in part an exaggerated metaphor for communication in modern marriages in which couples' lives outside of the home have little in common with each other. Like the modern marriage, when interdependence begins to become a tug of war for equality and equity in sharing responsibilities and negotiation falters, then sharing personal, intimate information merely makes each more vulnerable to blackmail, one-up-man-ship, or revenge as they alternate between roles of victim and victimizer. This movie, then, is also a metaphor for a tight-lipped standoff in marriage. After a few years of unsuccessfully trying to form and maintain sharing roles in the home, staleness permeates the marital air. What are more critical in this case are the long, dry, empty years of not being able to communicate and 'share' what their daily life is like. Hence, they surrender and begin to accept their boredom with one another. So they, as with many couples, do not give up without a last 'token' attempt to salvage the marriage by seeing a marriage counselor. The script for the counseling sessions is compressed into brief statements, by both clients and counselor, which epitomizes the very essence of a typically long, spitefully, and pitifully drawn out process that in the end trudges down an inevitable road to failure and divorce. After the glow, and the ashes of a burned out marriage are about to be thrown out, suddenly there is an 'assignment' in which John and Jane are, seemingly, accidentally pitted against one another. Here, the plot thickens as they each discover they had attempted to 'rub out' one another. Through an of un-covering of each other's true identity and attempt at mutual destruction, the years of smoldering disaffection and resentment explodes into a pressure-cooker of roiling rage. Back home, they each deftly play the domesticated cat while suspecting the other of a sneaky plot to pounce with the lethal blow on their wary mouse. They continue circling in a to-the-death bout but now, as more open assaults at one another unfold, their roles of predators and prey escalate. Egged on by their co-workers, all out battle rages but ends in a draw. In the course of the battle they begin to have a genuine respect for each other's equality in skill and courage. This is the first key turning point. In spite of the great show of determination to destroy, they do not, well, really, emotionally they cannot, bring it off. The secret of their hidden, deep, persistent-against-all-odds love for each ekes out when neither can strike the final blow. This is the second key turning point. Being off guard in the heat of their battles, they are confused when the stealth troupes of both of their agencies enter the fray, attacking both of them. After successfully fending off onslaughts from both sides they meet with John's fellow agent who informs them that they indeed are both targets because no one wants two secret assassins of opposing agencies to be marriage partners. However, they are told that they have a way out. They must find the person, now being held hostage, who was target of the assignment when the fiasco started and surrender him to the agencies. Again, unsuspectingly, they are being setup by both sides so both of these birds can be killed with one stone (Uzi). Nevertheless, they eventually 'get it' and seize this as an opportune moment because they see that by the two best of the best killers teaming up they may defeat the assassins' assassins. When they survive after a harrowing all out war waged by hordes of the agencies' hit men, they pull out all the stops in brutal interrogation and confessing the truth about themselves. Surviving the worst of odds together forms the bond they had longed for all along. They now begin a genuine attempt at an authentic relationship based on mutual respect and a win-win strategy for negotiating equality and equity. Once again, love triumphs against all odds. The final metaphor for modern marriage is that fighting it out as equals, neither one surrendering ground, and developing mutual respect as equals with mutual support in their struggle to survive in the modern world can make a marriage work after all.