So. I’m sitting here on my day off watching admittedly one of my favorite actors: Ms. Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Good movie I can see how they hooked up. There’s the usual steam, knowing looks and behind the scenes blah, blah, blah. I still like that movie. I like a lot of action movies. Call it a holdover of something dear old dad taught me; as his days at home were spent sitting in front of the TV watching Rambo or Over the Top (classic!).
However, what was troubling to me was one particular scene in the movie that played out all wrong. The scene is of the Pitt and Jolie characters: John and Jane Smith fighting to the death after they fight out the other is a spy. From my perspective, John really won the fight or at least wore Jane down. In the end he could not pull the trigger and neither could she and we were treated to some “hot” Jolie-Pitt action. But, with a not so close look at the scene, one comes to the conclusion of a man beating his wife to the point of the house being destroyed. I think the filmmakers knew that this was the case with a viewing of the dailes. A very well choreographed scene, indeed. But in the end it was a scene where the good looking stud mercenary beat his wife’s ass. (Watch clip)
One part of the scene had Jolie out of frame being kicked repeatedly by Pitt’s character. The solution to mask this obvious abuse was to add a fun track: “Express Yourself” by
Charles Wright. (Listen) Really? As soon as the scene ended, I asked myself what would this look like if I had watched this on mute. So I did, and it was fucked up. So fucked up.
Now, I must say that Jane Smith did get her licks in, but it just wasn’t the same. Her character’s intensity did not match the murderous energy that John Smith had in wanting to kill his wife of six years. But maybe it was Jolie’s acting, maybe she isn’t as intense as Pitt. But the filmmakers could have seen this as a possible reading of domestic violence and not of two evenly matched assassins fighting for their lives. But instead writer, director, editor, studio, and whoever else was in charge of this hot mess took the lazy Hollywood way out in inserting a song of doing you despite what may be said about you, cranked it up to 11 and hoped that the audience didn’t notice. Just another example of Hollywood thinking the audience is dumber than they are. At least Jolie got a good line in “Who’s your daddy, now”?
