Allied is a romantic thriller that could best be described as Casablanca meets Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The movie is positively old-fashioned in terms of film making and storytelling that this could’ve easily been made back in the ’40s. It also could’ve been made in 2016 and no matter the era, for the most part it works.
Brad Pitt stars as Max Vatan, a Canadian Intelligence officer who travels to 1942 French Morocco in order to assassinate the German chancellor. While there, he falls in love with a beautiful freedom fighter (Marion Cotillard).
They eventually marry and seem to have a perfectly normal life, but then Max receives word that his new love may in fact be a German spy. Max is then coerced into eliminating her or find himself executed for treason.
As I said already, Allied generally works well mainly due to the chemistry between Pitt and Cotillard. They bring just enough romance, drama, and tension to hold it together and the sure-fire touch of director Robert Zemeckis wonderfully recreates the mood and atmosphere of the ’40s.
The drama is intriguing: Will Pitt do his duty or will he let his love get the better of him? By the end of the film, it all comes down to suspenseful sequences and the final sequence may end up having some audiences wondering if Pitt would actually do what he sets out to do.
These two are hardly Humphrey Bogart and Ingmar Bergman and they shouldn’t be compared to them by any stretch. Mainly, it’s just a good-looking film with great performances by two tremendous actors.
Grade: B
(Rated R for violence, some sexuality/nudity, language and brief drug use.)
