For Zemeckis and for screenwriter Stephen Knight, WWII is merely a CGI backdrop. Nearly every frame is crammed with war iconography, often composed with the most preposterous dramatic sensibility (an outside birth in the middle of an air raid?) and invariably presented with the same perfectly manicured artifice. There is no weight here. No sense of danger (the most pressing concern when the cast is hit by an air raid is a burning stogonoff). No rigour to the espionage line (Pitt’s spy is posing as a phosphate miner and the Germans’ test this cover is to ask him to write down the chemical formula for phosphate?). No acknowledgement of the dubious politics at play. No acknowledgement of the cost of life.
And lesbians that stick out like dog’s bollocks.
What’s worse, there is no chemistry between Pitt and his usually-far-far-far-better-than-this co-star Marion Cotillard. Nil. Their do-they-really-mean-it courtship is eye-rollingly lame. Their sandy, front seat Titanic sexing is awkward in the extreme. And without any shred of connection between the two spies the introduction of the double agent storyline is just plain tiresome.
Pitt doesn’t save this. Cotillard doesn’t save this. The only things that hold Allied back from the complete write-off precipice are the regular zingers dropped into Knight’s horrendous screenplay and the anticipation of just how far Zemeckis will go for a war torn vista.
If we’re happily devouring tripe like this, it is probably an indicator that we’re needing to relearn the lessons of war.
★★
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