Chemistry gets lost in the fog of war in ‘Allied’
Ridiculously attractive spies fall hard for each other in Allied, but don’t expect Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Nazis.
The A-list star vehicle for Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard is unfortunately caught somewhere between bullet-ridden World War II mystery and banter-laden epic love story. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the wartime thriller ( out of four; rated R; in eeEE theaters nationwide) tries so hard to be a modern Casablanca — and then imagine what the tale would be like if Rick and Ilsa actually got together — that it shoots down a lot of its finer points.
Allied throws French Resistance fighter Marianne Beauséjour (Cotillard) together with Canadian wing commander Max Vatan (Pitt) for a mission in 1942 French Morocco. They’ve never met, but their reputations precede them as they go undercover as a married couple to assassinate a German ambassador.
Love blossoms for the faux couple while they try to fit in and play their parts. Marianne worries that Max’s Parisian accent isn’t believable, each tries to test the other — he with weapons, she with sex appeal — and when Max points out her looks, she replies, “Being good at this kind of work isn’t beautiful.”
One intimate sandstorm encounter and shot-up Nazi shindig later, the film shifts forward to Max and Marianne’s wedding — which Max’s boss (Jared Harris) doesn’t exactly support wholeheartedly — and family time with kids in London, though still living with the constant danger of German bombing.
What really rocks Max’s world is when he’s told by secretive higher-ups that Marianne is a double agent working for the Nazis, and he has 72 hours to prove her innocence or be forced to execute her himself.
The action scenes are topnotch — so, too, are the excellent period costumes and production design — and Zemeckis captures the paranoia of the time, even cinematically painting the surrealist picture of a romantic picnic next to a downed and still smoking Nazi warplane.
Pitt and Cotillard, though, are missing a lot of needed heat. His character, especially at first, is kind of wooden anyway, but the initial spark between the two actors fizzles after the first act. Cotillard seems to be carrying the heavier load emotionally — at least until later, when Max is frantically flying rogue missions to France and going to other extremes to figure out the truth about his spouse.
Focusing too hard on the central lovers in Steven Knight’s screenplay wastes great opportunity around them. Lizzy Caplan has a role as Max’s sister, a woman with military ties who isn’t fleshed out enough, other than an implied same-sex relationship. And Matthew Goode is completely underutilized as an injured soldier who could have insight into Marianne’s history.
Zemeckis keeps the main mystery taut until the end, though not enough is seeded in the movie’s first half, and the watchable war-torn romance of the beginning falls apart gradually.
Unfortunately, unlike its two main characters, those key aspects never marry to become an
Allied unit.