There are many great moments in Robert Zemeckis’s Allied, but my favorite (barring any spoilers) might be near the beginning. Max Vatan (Brad Pitt), a spy who is just arriving in the beautiful city of Casablanca strolls into a bar full of Nazi sympathizers drunk and smoking. The immaculate bar looks like a sort of heavenly painting reflecting a gold hue into the audience. Then, suddenly a woman. One he’s never seen before but has been instructed to love with all his heart. She turns around to see him and smiles with the most beautiful smile one could imagine, and then springs up to hug and kiss him. Two strangers in the most beautiful town in the world falling into character in a second. It’s a beautiful thing to see. There’s an immaculate quality to that moment that Allied doesn’t always keep hold of but much of the time is suspenseful enough to compensate for. The trick to its suspense isn’t exactly what one would expect and might even throw some off of its true beauty, but to those who can fall into the film much like the beautiful characters do this will be an beautiful experience....no I won’t stop saying beauty. That’s hard when you’re talking about a film directed by Robert Zemeckis. The trailers to this movie offer an addicting hook: Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) has started a family with the woman spy who took part in the Casablanca mission with him, one Marianne Beauséjour (Marion Cotillard). One day, his bosses in the British intelligence V-Section pull him aside and tell him that his wife might be a German spy and it’s up to him to figure that out. If she is, than Vatan must kill her, if not the whole ordeal will be forgotten. Even if the trailer didn’t make this movie look as good as it actually is, that hook was enough to make me want to see it. Good thing that the actual film really is better than most are regarding it as, though it’s not a surprise that reception hasn’t been exactly glowing. The reason for this is found in the way that the piece juxtaposes the life of a spy and builds suspense. This is done very carefully through little things about the production that don’t seem quite correct. Brad Pitt is good, but he seems a little flat and out of place. The visuals are captivating and believable, but there’s an ever more obvious fact that most of them are digital The effects are good, but they also look old fashioned to a fault even. Marion Cotillard...well she’s just so amazing in everything that it’s not a surprise that she is in this. All of this seems to present and deliberate to have been unintentional, which seems counterintuitive, but it’s not really. The tone instead finds itself never landing on its feet making the film extremely riveting. It’s odd to watch as what should be a flaw allows a film to actually iron out most of its problems, but that’s just what happens here. Brad Pitt doesn’t really fit in, well now I can believe that there’s stakes in him being caught. Nothing feels safe, nothing feels sound and nothing feels right. That’s good, this is a spy movie. There are moments when the film ratchets into place. Gory, brutal moments of violence and moments of passion. Zemeckis takes a time to create a romantic movie out of Allied too, taking advantage of the Casablanca setting to stage romantic scenes strung together with blissful digital transitions. Cotillard and Pitt feel so bonded as a couple that their dedication to the craft is obvious. The moments of passion as just are effective as the moments of violence, even startling. For any misstep, that Allied takes the couple at its center feels perfect. This being a Zemeckis film, no matter what the ending has a touch of sentimentality that should never be underestimated. It feels almost like Forrest Gump or Zemeckis’s other 90’s efforts, which is actually refreshing in this downbeat era of filmmaking Allied is another well-made effort from Robert Zemeckis that seems oddly counterintuitive in the way it builds suspense but does so all the same. This isn’t the movie that will receive the awards, but it’s sure one of the nicest little surprises of this awards season. I give Allied an 8 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |