Allied: Predictable but Still Touching
Release Date：Nov/23/2016
Genre：Action/Drama/Romance/Thriller/War
Director：Robert Zemeckis
Cast：Brad Pitt、Marion Cotillard、Lizzy Caplan
Viola's Rating：6.7
Although
“Bragelina” has officially ended, aficionados will never ever forget how “Mr.
and Mrs.Smith” sparked the fire between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. As Pitt’s
5th WWII themed feature film, “Allied” reminds its audience of not
only “Mr. and Mrs.Smith”, but also Jolie’s “Salt” and Pitt’s other WWII films
such as “Fury” and “Inglorious Basterds”.
This
dramatic action romance talks about a Candaian intelligence officer (Brad Pitt)
encounters a female French Resistance fighter (Marion Cotillard) on a deadly
mission behind enemy lines in North Africa in 1942, and how their relationship
gets tested by the pressures of war after they reunite in London.
It’s
easy for Cotillard to “act” as a French agent while Pitt even had to learn how
to speak French with Quebec accent. The flick is very international combining
American, British, Canadian, French and German elements, and with the
background set in 1942, there’s a classic and nostalgic ambience watching it.
Nominated
for Best Costume Design, “Allied” brings moviegoers back to the time when WWII
took place by showing people’s appearance at the time, especially the uniforms
of allies and Gestapo.
Besides
Costume Design, everything in the motion picture was picked over carefully to
fit the time frame. Scenes in Casablanca fully present the beauty and exotic atmosphere
in Africa, and the important element, desert, plays a critical role in plot
building.
What
differs “Allied” from “Mr. and Mrs.Smith” the most is that the main characters
in “Allied” get married knowing each other’s occupation while in “Mr. and Mrs.
Smith”, this is used as a tool to establish the storyline.
However,
the plot is a little bit predictable despite it still makes the audience
nervous due to some clever turning points which serve as obstacles for Max, the
leading role in the movie, and those tensions are not strong enough for
moviegoers to worry about the following events.
Even
though most of the plot is predicable, the ending of the picture is still
touching, not because of its different result from clichés, but because of the
conversation between the characters, their interaction and how they deal with
it. There are several bookends in the feature films that seem to be
unimportant, but pay back in the end and hit the audience with an emotional
wave.
“Allied”
is neither an entertaining blockbuster nor a deep film which gives you time to
reflect life or ponder things, and it even has a predicable storyline, but it
will still touch your heart. Also, with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard as
leading roles, it’s definitely a worthy flick to watch.
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