Film Review “Knight and Day”

Starring: Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz
Directed by: James Mangold
Rated: PG 13
Running time: 1 hour 50 mins
20th Century Fox

Our Score: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

While waiting for a flight to Boston Roy Miller (Cruise) and June Havens (Diaz) cross paths. Twice. June is on her way home to attend her younger sisters wedding. However, when she gets to the gate she’s told the flight is overbooked. As she grudgingly heads back to the terminal Roy tells her “Sometimes things happen for a reason.” Moments later, as he sits on a nearly empty plane, Roy is surprised to see June boarding the plane. Sometimes things DO happen for a reason.

An action-comedy with plenty of both, “Knight and Day” is a mostly enjoyable film that works only because of Cruise. His Roy Miller is a cross between “Mission: Impossible” spy Ethan Hunt and the sports agent Jerry Maguire. Cruise has always come across as the kind of guy you’d like to hang out with and it’s that charm that carries the film during the more, shall we say, unrealistic scenes. Diaz is ok as a woman who enjoys restoring old muscle cars, a weak plot point inserted so that when the audience sees her driving at high speeds and doing donuts in the street they’ll assume that her tinkering automatically makes her a great driver.

The story in a nutshell: mysterious man Miller and blonde victim Havens find themselves pursued by various bad guys in search of a new type of energy supply, one that never runs down. The script, by newbie Patrick O’Neill, has some great lines (mostly delivered by Cruise) but eventually implodes due to plot holes so big Diaz could drive one of her muscle cars through them. Is he a rogue agent? Is he the good guy? Would the duo have been better off making a sequel to “Vanilla Sky?” Excellent questions all.

Director Mangold, who has done some excellent work (“Copland” and “Walk the Line” are two films that immediately come to mind) seems hand cuffed by the directions the script takes. Cast-wise a majority of the characters are well drawn, including Paul Dano, so good in “There Will Be Blood” and here showing a more lighter side then audiences are used to. As youthful scientist (and closeted Hall and Oates fan) Simon Feck, Dano is quite good. Peter Sarsgaard is fine as a government agent hot on Miller’s trail. But what finally does the film in is the unrealistic direction it begins to move in. In the hands of a lesser director the film would be terrible. With Mangold at the helm it’s actually bearable.

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