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Knight & Day English Movie 2010
The rehabilitation of Tom Cruise continues. After seriously spooking the herd with his off-camera antics a few years ago, he’s rebounded nicely with a series of unpretentious, but well-oiled star vehicles that remind us why we dug him so much in the first place. Knight and Day may be the most enjoyable of the lot: a breezy, throwaway actioner reminiscent of the old Cary Grant/Alfred Hitchcock collaborations… or, more fairly, Roger Moore’s run as James Bond. It fully embraces the glamorous spy fantasy as a means of letting Cruise and costar Cameron Diaz toss cocktail banter at each other.
Though formula it may be, the film still hits all the right notes, courtesy of director James Mangold who has worked successfully in an impressive array of genres. His tonal acumen is absolutely vital here, providing action, danger, romance and comedy in just the right amounts. Part of the fun stems from Cruise’s character--superspy Roy Miller--remaining absolutely unflappable in the face of every conceivable danger. We need to believe in the threat, but also that he doesn’t worry one whit about it. The wrong director or a less capable star would doom the equation, but together, the pair establish a terrifically bubbly atmosphere that holds the line against any threat.
Then there’s Diaz, playing audience surrogate and gal-next-door June Havens. She bumps into Miller at the airport on the way to her sister’s wedding; he slips a super-secret MacGuffin into her bag to get it past security, then joins her on a nearly empty flight to Boston. The sparks fly as they chat over mini tequila bottles. Then June heads to the bathroom and the remaining passengers reveal themselves as assassins bent on icing the two of them. Roy wades into them (and thank God we’ve grown and healed enough as a nation to let good guys kill bad guys at 30,000 feet again), but the plane goes out of control, and… well then we’re off to the races.
Ostensibly, Roy needs to keep the MacGuffin safe from the forces of evil while protecting June from the mess he’s inadvertently involved her in. June discovers a knack for this lifestyle, but still doesn’t like people shooting at her and isn’t sure this charming man of mystery actually works for the right side. All that just serves as the support structure, however. The real purpose of the exercise is watching the two stars radiate charisma at nuclear levels while zipping through exotic locales in high-speed vehicles and dispatching the various faceless mooks arrayed against them.
It’s hardly Shakespeare… and yet it sets itself to the task at hand with considerable wit and grace. It’s not really for the kids either. Despite its status as a summer lark, Knight and Day displays a refreshingly adult approach to the material, with a sophistication and a sense of propriety that anyone above the voting age should appreciate. The slick dialogue rolls right off the two stars’ tongues, driving their romance while eliciting more than the usual amount of laughs in the bargain.
Mangold spends a large amount of energy on the film’s set pieces (hampered by pedestrian CGI but otherwise agreeably flashy), but never lets them detract from the couple at the center of it all, who remain the best reason to check the film out. The heyday of the movie star may have passed, and we’re probably better for it. It keeps vanity projects from spinning out of control and allows good star-free films like The Hangover to prosper. But every now and then, it’s worth remembering why we paid the big bucks to see those names above the marquee. Cruise and Diaz earn their salaries for a reason; Knight and Day succeeds because it doesn’t make them second to the mayhem, handing them a load that they can both shoulder without breaking a sweat
