FILM OF THE WEEK
Allied Cert: 15A. Now showing.
It’s time to talk about Brad Pitt. We don’t mean the recent split with Angelina Jolie and the tabloid sideshow that came with it. Nor do we mean the speculation of an affair with co-star Marion Cotillard on the set of this spy thriller. Far more pressing is how for so long this chiselled charlatan has persuaded the world that he is a capable character actor.
In terms of Allied, Cotillard, one of the finest actors of her generation, only serves to show up Pitt for the varnished plank of teak that he is, to the point where you wonder if he is medicated. A gaping, chemistry-free chasm opens between them. Rumours of an off-screen tryst start to seem far-fetched.
Cotillard battles on. She plays Marianne Beausejour, a French resistance fighter stationed in Casablanca (where else) and assigned to rendezvous with Quebecois secret agent Max Vatan (Pitt). Once contact is made, the pair pose around the coffee houses frequented by Nazi goose-steppers as a society couple while plotting a high-profile assassination. Inevitably, love blooms between the courageous pair and they return to London following the mission, to start a family. The honeymoon comes to a halt when Marianne comes under suspicion as an imposter.
Hollywood titan Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump) plonks the pretty leads in period costumes against an array of hideous CGI backdrops that are fooling no one. Only at the end is there a sense of webs closing and knuckles whitening. The usual espionage charades — characters playing characters etc — is stymied from the get-go as Pitt flounders in his efforts to mine layers or emote convincingly. Just as he’s done throughout his career.