Schizophrenic Smith a Bewildering Ride

John (Brad Pitt) and Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie) are about as ordinary a suburban couple you’re likely to find. They live in a bright, shiny high-tech home, their neighbors smile and have cocktail parties, while their friends shimmer with the same amount of personal and professional success they both do. Problem is, their marriage is slowly falling apart. Cold, lifeless and without any sort of spark, the duo is definitely headed for divorce court, no amount of marriage counseling enough to help them find reconciliation.

What they do not know is that the other is actually living a double life, both Smiths high paid, incredibly efficient assassins adept at getting any job, no matter how difficult, done. Unfortunately, the two of them work for competing organizations, discovering at the scene of a mutual hit the other’s true identity. Now they have 48-hours to eliminate one another before their employers shift all resources to wipe them out. This sudden mortal byplay has an unforeseen side effect; it produces an energy and excitement in their marriage that’s been missing for years. Suddenly John and Jane discover themselves falling in love all over again, and even if this new affair can only end at the point of loaded gun at least they’ve saved their marriage from disintegrating.

And so begins the latest spectacle from “The Bourne Identity” and “Go” director Doug Liman “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” a silly, ludicrous, over-the-top, massively expensive action-comedy that’s just as infuriating as it is giddily entertaining. It’s a tongue-in-cheek adventure guaranteed to produce smiles with its effervescent energy and sublime charms. It’s also enough to make you pull your hair out, Liman unleashing a second half that’s astoundingly ponderous, hugely obnoxious and wildly incoherent. It is an utter mixed bag, so schizophrenic a viewer needs a combination of Dramamine and Zoloft to get through it.

The majority of the movie’s charms can be attributed directly to its two leads. Pitt and Jolie have been tabloid fodder for months, their work here directly blamed by many in the trashcan media for Jennifer Aniston’s marital troubles. I can’t comment on that, no way for me to know if the sparks flying between Angelina and Brad were far more genuine than how they appear onscreen. What I can say is both are fantastic as far as this is concerned, turning on some old-school Hollywood charm the likes of which went out of style as soon as Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr became eligible for AARP benefits.

Seriously, both are a joy to watch. Not only do they share some seriously sexy chemistry, they’re both so at ease in their respective characters you’d think they were just playing facets of themselves. This is nowhere more apparent than during a robust high voltage battle of the sexes that literally tears apart the duo’s sacred suburban dream home. Through the haze of bullets and sucker punches, Pitt and Jolie come to sparklingly euphoric life, the love they’d somehow lost reignited in this almost stream-of-consciousness barrage of comedic violence. I couldn’t get over how entertaining it all ways, the majority of my reservations washed away right there amidst these two’s infectious spirit.

Unfortunately, this feeling of euphoria doesn’t last, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” drowning in a morass coincidence, implausibility, indifference and cookie cutter violence. There is a certain moment occurring about the midpoint where things get decidedly less enjoyable, a time when Mr. and Mrs. Smith are no longer at the same odds the once were when things began, and it is at this point where Simon Kinberg’s (“XXX: State of the Union”) screenplay loses all its charms. The film becomes a cacophony of over-familiar shootouts and car chases, and even the novelty of Jolie and Pitt speeding down the expressway in a minivan wearing only their skivvies does little to get the pulse racing. (Although, admittedly Mr. Smith’s novel way of dispatching an uninvited guest through the van’s open sliding doors is worthy of a slight chuckle.)

It is as if, almost all at once, everyone involved with this farcical tale lost collective interest in what it was exactly they were trying to do. Liman, an invigorating director with talent dripping out the wazoo, goes into autopilot, staging things with a rather hackneyed flair beneath both him and the lineup of actors he’s assembled to take part. Only during a late movie coffee break between Pitt, Jolie and amusingly exasperated Vince Vaughn does “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” spring back to life, and even then this return to form is far too brief to really even matter. Worse, the whole thing is bookended with a string maudlin psychiatric sessions doing nothing other than elongate an already overlong feature, slowing things down to an almost catatonic standstill.

Still, I just can’t get over how much I adored that mischievous first half. While it’s definitely not “Prizzi’s Honor” (heck, it’s not even “True Lies”), this opening hour is still one of the most bubbly I’ve encountered all year. If only the rest could sustain even a fraction of that energy, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” would then have to be considered one of the year’s most pricelessly entertaining surprises instead of one its most distressingly depressing disappointments.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)