Brad Pitt: 5 Awesome Performances and 5 That Sucked

3. Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Mr. and Mrs. Smith was about a couple living a life of domestic boredom, whilst hilariously unaware that they were both world-class assassins. As the premise for a film goes, this is undoubtedly a good one. But if this is true, why does it all feel so...cold? I'll tell you why; it's the actors. As I've just mentioned, this premise had the potential to be comedy gold. Arguably, Mr. and Mrs. Smith shake a good amount of fun out of it, but the problem is that this genius idea takes a back seat to the pretty people, or Brangelina, as they came to be (irritatingly) known. Selling your film as a star vehicle has it's own rewards (truck -loads of guaranteed money, for one) but also it's fair share of traps. Fundamentally, it shines an even bigger spotlight on the protagonists, so they have to be on top of their game. But more importantly, it's probably a good thing to lay out what game they should be playing. Mr. and Mrs. Smith bungled this horribly. This whole film had all the potential in the world as a comedy, and was certainly sold as such by the actually-pretty-funny trailers. The idea was to juxtapose the inescapable humdrum of everyday living with the fantastical life of a top-of-the-line hitman, and for the the first couple of minutes, the film did this rather well. Through some clever vignettes, such as Angelina Jolie doing the dusting whilst balancing on just one leg of a chair, before getting back onto all four when she hears her husband coming in, we were able to laugh along with the film. However, as the runtime dragged on, you could tell more and more than the very presence of Pitt and Jolie were changing things somewhat. Simply put, their megastar status took the quirky vibe away from the film, as it endeavoured to give them more screentime at the risk of diluting the premise. I'll explain. Basically, much like Ocean's Twelve, this was Pitt on his cool-as-all-hell autopilot. You got the feeling that he turned up on set, played himself for a bit, and then went home. This would be fine in a film like the Oceans franchise, where everybody (barring the electronics expert) is a thoroughly urbane and charismatic. However, this isn't a film with this sort of people. It's about everyday life, and it's dullness, made all the more pertinent by the character's job as an assassin. But Pitt still carries on as his regular, glamorous self, seemingly unable to help himself. I haven't met many insurance people with the good looks and droll wit that Pitt's John Smith seems to have, never mind an office drone who's built like a fighting machine. He's just too remarkable to ever convince. His obvious A-lister quality sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the hedgerows of suburbia, so the film feels obligated to make up ways to further use such star power. This causes a stripping back of a once-clever plot in favour of an asinine shoot-em-up, and this is a shame, because it didn't have to be this way. Whilst Pitt was later able to show that he can do comedy in Burn After Reading,the writers seem to think it incomprehensible that a bonafide mega-star would be capable of lampooning himself unless he looks cool whilst doing it. Sadly, Pitt appeared to have been all too happy to go along with the charade; he foregoes the obvious plot goldmine in favour of a series of empty action set-pieces designed to make the protagonists look as good as possible, and that's disappointing, to say the least. Couple this with the clear sexual chemistry between (groan) Brangelina, and you've got a film that just abandoned everything clever in order to focus on encouraging a cult of personality around it's two leading actors, who frankly could've played backgammon for two hours and still found an audience willing to watch. The point is that there was no challenge, no need for Pitt to exert himself, and without that drive, he easily fell back into old habits, squandering any potential this film may have had. This distinct misunderstanding of the role and consequent lack of acting effort causes the film to lose all emotional depth. Why should we care about this couple, when they're quite easily capable of obliterating a small private military company all by themselves? I'd rather ask a different question; whatever happened to the argument about the curtains? I can't help but feel that answering the second question would've been more interesting- I've seen thousands of movie explosions in my time, but never something as intriguing as a trained killer's arguments on home decor. It's unfortunate that Pitt's very presence on this film denied me this.