Knight and Day
Review
by Anthony Morris
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Knight and Day
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It's easy to see the appeal of the spy / romance combo – even if they almost never work on the big screen (Mr & Mrs Smith, anyone?).
You've
got plenty of spy action (explosions, shoot-outs car chases) for the
guys, and a slice of romance (smouldering looks, being rescued from
danger, getting to wear fancy clothes) for the girls.
So while Knight and Day isn't really a success on any level, it does have enough going for it to make it hard to dismiss it outright.
When
June (Cameron Diaz) bumps into Roy (Tom Cruise) at an airport, he seems
like a nice guy. When they meet again on the plane, it looks like there
might be something more between them. When he kills everyone else on
the plane (they're all assassins sent to kill him), crashes the plane
in a corn field, drugs her and leaves her back at her place… well,
maybe that's a sign that something isn't quite right.
What
follows is a collection of action sequences that usually end with June
being drugged for her own good, which makes for a funny joke the first
time around (as well as a fairly decent way to skip some boring scenes)
unless you start to think about how you're watching a film about a
woman falling in love with a guy who keeps knocking her out with drugs.
The action scenes are mostly well staged, but a heavy reliance
on CGI blunts a lot of their impact once the cars start flying around,
which leaves it the romance to keep things interesting.
Sadly, it's just not up to it.
Tom
Cruise is charming and it's fun to see him loosen up a bit here, but
the chemistry with Diaz isn't anything special and her performance
(which is the heart of the film) sometimes feels a little flat.
If
there was the slightest suggestion that anyone involved with this film
had anything remotely interesting to say about male / female
relationships, then the fact that only the first two action sequences
provide any decent thrills wouldn't matter. As it stands, the only real
draw here from start to finish is Tom Cruise's grin.
A appealing as that might be, it's not really enough. 3 out
of 5
Knight and Day
Australian release: 15th July,
2010
Official
Site: Knight and Day
Cast: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard
Director: James Mangold
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