Allied stars Brad Pitt as a Canadian intelligence officer who goes on a secret mission in Nazi occupied Morocco and pairs up with a beautiful French resistance fighter to succeed. They encounter problems after the mission when they go to seemingly less treacherous territory in London, and Pitt must navigate new challenges to their relationship.
I had zero interest in seeing Allied in theaters, and if it was not streaming, I probably would not have seen it at home. I thought of Allied as the World War II prequel to Mr. and Mrs. Smith except with Marion Cotillard in Angelina Jolie’s role, which also occurred to tabloid journalists except outside the movie. When I actually watched the movie it reminded me more of The English Patient with a dash of Inglorious Basterds because World War II is the backdrop, not the point. The English Patient is not the kind of movie that holds up during repeat viewings, but Allied barely held up for one.
Allied is basically Hollywood’s eternal fascination with the femme fatale while also simultaneously wanting the woman to fall so madly in love that she fails to maintain her professionalism and is willing to risk it all for the man that she loves. Eyeroll. On the other side of the coin, the man is implicitly chastised for falling for and trusting a woman and is asked to wake up and do what needs to be done. Being a man means shaking off love and gives professional permission to physically hurt women as punishment for hurting them. While the movie never fully embraces these concepts, the underlying vibe is you can’t trust these bitches, am I right?
Believe it or not, my problem is less with these problematic gender dynamics, but that Allied made the least interesting partner the protagonist. Cotillard is a great actor—definitely better than Pitt. Because she is so beautiful, I feel as if American filmmakers rarely can see beyond the superficial and allow her to express her full range of talent without necessarily sacrificing her glamour. Her character is a more challenging role because she has to play it two ways to keep the problem presented in the narrative sustainable until the end of the film yet we follow around Pitt’s character. If Pitt was a better actor, then seeing a character that we know everything about project turbulent emotions on his face then rapidly suppressing them to keep up the ruse would be more fascinating to watch, but he is not so it is not. Instead the film has to rely on costumes, action, location changes and basically Rube Goldbergian plot devices to get the two most attractive people to hook up. Also maybe do a background check before you let chick into London.
Allied basically has a great cast then puts the movie on Pitt’s shoulders. It is the smart commercial choice, but considering that I only found Pitt attractive during Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood, not a great choice for movie goers hoping for amazing acting. I have already praised Cotillard and pointed out that she should have been the focus, but there were plenty of great actors orbiting around him, which only hurt him because he couldn’t keep up. Lizzy Caplan randomly plays his lesbian sister, and it would make more sense if Allied was adapted from a novel because her character does nothing, and at least if there was a book, I could pretend that there was supposed to be more to her story—such a waste! It is allegedly based on a true story, but I would like to see the receipts. Game of Thrones’ (before it sucked) Charlotte Hope plays her girlfriend. Jared Harris plays his boss, and Matthew Goode plays a supporting character that holds valuable information. Rev.’s Simon McBurney starts the psychological havoc. With Pitt at the helm, Allied never rises above feeling like a pale imitation of classic Hollywood and made me wish that I could buy into the film, but I never got lost in the film.
Allied always felt like a self-conscious Hollywood film hoping to borrow from the grandeur of the past, but I kept thinking that even though they were not in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, specifically Agent Carter, the titular heroine and Dottie Underwood would have looked at this pair in disgust. For the viewers, even though they are clearly smooth operators, it feels like their first mission to us so when things start to fall apart, I felt as if Peggy would have said, “Amateurs,” and Dottie would have spat, “Weak” in their direction. I am not going to spoil the movie for you, but Cotillard really goes above and beyond in her job, but it does not feel like it. I am not just comparing this film to the past, but the present’s take on life during World War II, and it just never did it for me.
Also I generally have a problem with using World War II as a backdrop as opposed to making it the central focus. Fiction is rarely better than reality when it comes to stories from that era, and Allied is no exception to this rule. Literally from the opening scene, it felt more like something from a James Bond film than a World War II film. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does lower the stakes a tad. Anything set in World War II should feel like life or death, but other than an ambassador’s wife looking deeply betrayed during a pivotal scene, I never bought that real people’s lives were at stake. They felt like elaborate constructions.
Allied was vaguely entertaining, but felt empty, and I left the whole experience indifferent and untouched. I appreciate the effort specifically the technical perfection, but other than the clear sheen of a huge budget, nothing else impressed me. If you are going to make a fantasy set during World War II, sweep me away and go all the way. These spies were more suited to a tea party.