Just skip this one.

Grade: D

Knight and Day

Indian Release Date: 09/07/10
CBFC Classification: U/A
Running Length: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Cast: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Jordi Molla, Viola Davis, Paul Dano
Director: James Mangold
Screenplay: Patrick O'Neill
Cinematography: Phedon Papamichael
Music: John Powell

This isn’t the first time audiences would be seeing Mr. Cruise as a globe-trotting secret agent, we are all more than familiar with his ‘Mission Impossible’ series. The twist here however is that ‘Knight and Day’ primarily attempts to be a tongue-in-cheek romantic-comedy with dollops of action thrown in for good measure. Though I admire the attempt of the movie to never take it self seriously, the lax attitude actually also makes the movie pretty limp in all the different genres it tries to cover. It pains me to say that the director behind such an atrocity is the usually talented James Mangold whose last two movies were ‘3:10 to Yuma’ (2007) & ‘Walk the Line’ (2005), both very solid efforts.  

June (Cameron Diaz) is on her way to her sister’s wedding. At the airport she meets a handsome stranger, Roy Miller, who grins a lot & looks suspiciously like an aging Tom Cruise. The two after literally bumping into each other more than a few times, end up boarding the same flight & sparks fly; just when everything seems to be headed for “Loves-Ville”, Roy kills the sparse population of the flight & crashes the plane to “safety”. He knocks June out in the first of many such incidents & drops her off back at her place with “charming” instructions on how to deal with the after-effects of the drug he gave her last night. Soon enough June receives a visit from a grim looking government agent, Fitzgerald (Peter Sarsgaard) who informs her that Roy is a rogue agent wanted by the agency (sorry but I forgot which agency they were talking about). Then inexplicably Roy turns up & wipes out a mini-army of agents singlehandedly & whisks June away with him. The plot gets more convoluted as things move ahead with some Spanish arms dealers, a whiz-kid who’s made an everlasting energizer battery & couple of double crosses.

The movie moves at a breakneck pace, rarely stopping to catch a breather but the plot inspite of the attempt to keep it mysterious is anything but that. It almost feels like it tries to channel ‘North by Northwest’ (1959) & ‘Charade’ (1963) along with the James Bond movies but fails to generate any legitimate excitement, suspense or tension. Even the attempt to paint Roy as the bad guy never feels genuine because the script never seems to have any edge & is happy sticking to the tried & tested.

The movie is loaded with action sequences to such an extent that the script looks like it was written primarily to move from one C.G.I. loaded scene to another with a few moments of quiet thrown in. The action is blandly choreographed in such a manner that, even though it moves fast & the editing is sharp, we never feel any sense of danger or tension, nor is it crazy enough to warrant a “wow” much like the scenes in ‘The A-Team’ (2010). Plus the cheat used every time the characters seem to be stuck between the devil & the deep sea is to have Roy knock June unconscious, only to have her wake up all rescued. No explanation as to how Roy got out of that tight spot is ever provided. The regularity of this trick robs the movie of some genuine interest that their escapes could have generated.
    
The biggest humbug which is beyond any logic is the reason why June is needed through out the movie? I mean she has nothing of importance to anyone, least of all to Roy but still makes it on to the plane at the start & nearly every other place Roy goes. I know he’s trying to keep her safe but a hardened secret agent like Roy, who can kill his own former comrades without flinching goes through all the trouble to keep a nobody like June alive, makes no sense. I guess that’s the movie’s way of telling you what real love is, illogical & shallow. Wonder if he would have gone through all that trouble if it had been some miserable old hag or Danny DeVito maybe?

Cruise attempts to mock his cocksure persona that has been self-created on & off the screen. Unfortunately the thing he probably doesn’t realize is that even when he’s serious off-screen it has all turned into one big joke thanks to the media. So even the joke can’t really be taken convincingly here no matter how hard he tries. Someone like ‘Les Grossman’ from ‘Tropic Thunder’ (2008) was the perfect comic foil for Cruise’s public image. Cameron Diaz on the other hand is someone whom I have never ever considered anything more than a pretty face with an abundance of talent to scream her lungs out & show-off her dazzling smile. She sticks to exactly what she does well throughout the movie. Palpable chemistry between the two leads is lacking inspite of the two spending a good deal of time together. This is because the script never gives them a quiet moment to share that would make us feel that here are two strangers actually falling for each other. Most of the romance follows like the clichéd “all style, no substance” formula. Excellent actors like Peter Sarsgaard (An Education), Viola Davis (Doubt) & Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) are cast in almost throwaway roles which do not allow them to display any acting skills whatsoever.  

The movie doesn’t expect you to take it seriously & I did not, unfortunately the movie did not provide me enough visceral thrills or natural charm to substitute intelligence with either. Other than sparse moments few & very far in between, there’s almost nothing to recommend here, though maybe die-hard fans of Mr. Cruise & Ms. Diaz might find it interesting to watch their favorite stars play themselves in a paper-thin fantasy.

Final Verdict: For Die-Hard fans of Cruise & Diaz only.

Grade: D
 

- Reviewed by Danish Bagdadi
 

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