Mr. & Mrs. Smith vs Grosse Pointe Blank

I really like movie stars. I can't help it. Listen, I loved Primer. But Primer didn't have Angelina Jolie in fishnet stockings. Mr. & Mrs. Smith does.

I'm not sure what the original intent of Mr. & Mr. Smith was. It seems a little like a movie created in the editing bay (there are three off-camera voices with no faces to match, even though the voices are famous). There aren't any bad guys that I could identify, although there must surely be bad guys, since there's much in the way of chasing and shooting. There's conflict, and plot, to a certain extent, but I'm not sure I could identify those either. It's funny, though, and spirited in that way that the most deliriously happy summer action movies often are (if The Bourne Supremacy is The Truman Show, this is Ed TV). The main reason to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith is to see two movie stars doing that movie star thing that so many actors cannot. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are not the biggest stars to ever appear on screen, but at any given moment during Mr. & Mrs. Smith—even in the opening credits—you'll be hard-pressed to think of anyone else who might be their competition.

Pitt and Jolie play John and Jane Smith. They've settled into their marriage, but it's one of boredom and routine. They no longer have sex (except in real life. YES I DID!), and have sought counseling. Also, they're assassins working on the same Impossible Mission from opposite sides. Maybe. They're after the same target, I think, so there must be a commission involved. If your pay wasn't getting spiked by finishing the job, then as long as Mr. Smith is putting in his hours, what's he care if Mrs. Smith pulled the trigger? Anyway, they find each other out and begin an all-out war in their beautiful suburban home. It's pretty awesome how violent it gets; I was expecting more of a flirty cartwheeling fight. Eventually, of course, the Smiths team up against their bosses, or some other random bad guys, and they have a spectacular chase on the freeway and an okay fight in a department store. Vince Vaughn plays Mr. Smith's friend, and gets to be funny, Kerry Washington plays Mrs. Smith's coworker and gets to do nothing.

None of it matters. None. It's all about the star power. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have massive chemistry together. Whatever their roles, it would have worked. If they had played Neo and Trinity, I'd own that ten-disc Matrix collection. Jolie, especially, has never been served this well. Director Doug Liman frames and lights Jolie in ways that finally show her in the Big Fat Movie Star realm she should never, ever leave again. Angelina Jolie is ten feet tall. Angelina Jolie has flowing raven hair. At one point, after vigorous post-fistfight sex, Mrs. Smith gets one last punch in, just because. At another, she refuses Mr. Smith's offer of the “girl gun” and makes him trade. Angelina, I know in real life you're a great humanitarian, and that your heart is full of charity and justice and love for children and refugees and several of your costars. As long as you keep making movies where you have knives strapped to your thighs, where you call guys like Brad Pitt “bitch”, where you repel down the side of a building at an alarming rate, but still find time to brush your hair off your shoulder, count me in. Feel free to take my ticket money and donate it to the charity of your choice.

You can watch pretty much anything in conjunction with Mr. & Mrs. Smith. War of the Roses comes to mind, as do The Mexican and True Lies, which are the most obvious modern inspirations for the movie. There's another though, that takes the star power down, say, two notches, but fills the void with a great script, a well-used supporting cast, and one of the best soundtracks of the Nineties: Grosse Pointe Blank.

John Cusack plays Martin Blank, a hitman, who like the Smiths is quite intelligent, friendly and well-mannered. He visits his psychiatrist, but it's not for redemption so much as regular stressed-out yuppie stuff. Martin has missed a hit, but his class reunion is coming up, and coincidentally, there's another hit there, so why not go, catch up on old times, kill for hire, maybe have some punch.

Grosse Pointe Blank (directed by George Armitage) is a smart, funny movie. When Martin gets home, the film becomes quirkier, because Martin is actually an awkward, neurotic guy, and putting him in his ex-girlfriend's bedroom plays like Cusack's revisiting one of his ‘80s comedies. The ex-girlfriend is a D.J. played by Minnie Driver, who has never been looser, funnier or better cast. Cusack and Driver aren't Pitt and Jolie, but Grosse Pointe Blank is a smaller movie with different needs. The safety of the world isn't at stake (I'm not sure it's at stake in Mr. & Mrs. Smith either, but something big is happening); it's just a guy nervous about his reunion, meeting up with his would-be prom date, and you know, killing some guy in Detroit. Grosse Pointe Blank moves effortlessly between scenes like a violent shoot-out to Guns n Roses in a convenience store to Cusack “flying” Driver on his feet in her old bedroom. And Grosse Pointe Blank one-ups Mr. & Mrs. Smith again with its supporting cast: besides Cusack and Driver, we get Jeremy Piven, Dan Ackroyd, Alan Arkin and Joan Cusack. I love Movie Stars, but sometimes it pays to spread those Brad Pitt dollars around some.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith: B
Grosse Pointe Blank: A