Lizzy Caplan

There's a terrific script at the heart of this World War II thriller, with a blast of complex romance alongside some dark Hitchcockian twists. But filmmaker Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) was probably the wrong man for the directing job, as he overproduces every scene to within an inch of its life. Everything is so big and slick that the story begins to be swamped by the too-perfect costumes and scenery. Which makes it difficult for the audience to engage in what should really be a scrappy, dangerous little drama.

It all kicks off in 1942 Casablanca, where Canadian pilot Max (Brad Pitt) meets French resistance agent Marianne (Cotillard), and together they pose as a couple to infiltrate a party and assassinate a high-ranking Nazi. They also fall in love, and afterwards decide to move to London together and start a family. But a year later, as they are raising their young daughter in leafy Hampstead, Max is told by British officials (Jared Harris and Simon McBurney) that Marianne may have secretly been a German spy all along. And there's now a countdown, as a trap as been laid to prove her guilt unless Max can find evidence to the contrary.

What follows is a tense series of events that are drenched in suspicion and intrigue as Max scrambles around to find the truth while trying not to let Marianne know what he's up to. It's a clever set-up that's very nicely played by Pitt and Cotillard, both of whom bring contrasting layers of emotion and subterfuge to their roles, plus plenty of swooning romantic energy. Most intriguing is that both are able to remain likeable as things progress. So whatever the outcome, it won't change how we feel about them. The adept actors in the side roles are excellent, although they're little more than more scenery around the central couple.

Continue reading: Allied Review

There's half of a great satire here, as Seth Rogen, James Franco and Evan Goldberg combine that freewheeling mayhem from This Is the End with some more pointed political comedy. But in its second half, the script begins to repeat its less-funny jokes, wallowing in smutty gags and excessive violence. These things may please the chuckleheads in the audience, but they wear everyone else out. And they make us work to see the film's much more enjoyable brom-com plot and sharp social commentary.

The story is centred around swaggering TV personality Dave Skylark (Franco), whose chat show majors in shocking celebrity revelations like Eminem's homosexuality or Rob Lowe's baldness. Dave's producer Aaron (Rogen) is feeling like a second-class newsmaker when he discovers that North Korean despot Kim Jong-un (Randall Park) is a fan of Dave's show and is willing to be interviewed live on camera. Then before they can head off, two CIA operatives (Lizzy Caplan and Reese Alexander) convince Dave and Aaron to assassinate Kim with a deadly drug. And when they arrive in Pongyang their mission is complicated when Aaron falls for Kim's media director Sook (Diana Bang) and Dave falls for Kim himself.

Yes, the film has a fairly standard romantic-comedy structure, as Dave and Aaron's close friendship is strained to the breaking point by the arrival of another man. Virtually all of the dialogue is infused with gay innuendo, double entendres and full-on sex jokes. Some of this is genuinely hilarious, such as the first time Dave and Kim discover their mutual love of Katy Perry's Firework. Then that joke is brought back four or five times, so by the end it's not even mildly amusing. Pretty much every gag in the film is beaten to death, even the ones that weren't funny to begin with. Thankfully, the actors' energy never flags.

Continue reading: The Interview Review