Glossy affair with Pitt and Cotillard as spies
ALLIED, 15, 124MINS Hollywood Plaza, Scarborough Star rating out of 10: 6
Falling in love can be deadly in Robert Zemeckis’ oldfashioned espionage thriller set during the Second World War.
Canadian intelligence officer Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) is posted to Casablanca in 1942, where he joins forces with spunky French Resistance fighter Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard) on a secret mission behind enemy lines. They must pose as a couple to maintain their cover and sparks fly as their faux romance kindles deep feelings.
The couple reunite in London, where they decide to get married and raise a beautiful child.
As the Allied effort gathers pace in the shadow of war, Max is contacted by his superiors, including Frank Heslop (Jared Harris), who believe that Marianne is a spy working for the Germans.
They assert that she is passing intelligence back to handlers in Berlin.
Vatan is ordered to execute his wife as a traitor to the Allied cause or face death if he fails to carry out these orders.
Convinced that Marianne is innocent, Max embarks on a dangerous mission to clear her name.
The film has been overshadowed by real life events of Pitt’s messy divorce from Angelina Jolie and rumours of an affair between Pitt and Cotillard – firmly denied.
That said, the film looks of the highest quality and has true Hitchcockian suspense moments – including one set in a cafe in which Vatan thinks he has been ‘made’ by a Nazi.