Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a 2005 American romantic comedy action film directed by Doug Liman and written by Simon Kinberg. The original music score was composed by John Powell. The film stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as a bored married couple who learn that they are both master assassins when they are sent on the same job, closely following the storyline of the 1985 film Prizzi's Honor.

Plot

The film opens with John (Brad Pitt) and Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie) answering questions during marriage counseling. The couple has been married for "five or six" years, but their marriage is suffering to the point that they cannot remember the last time they had sex. They tell the story of their first meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, where they met while both were secretly on the run from Colombian authorities; since the authorities were looking for tourists traveling alone after a recent heist, the two claimed to be together to avoid being questioned. They quickly fell in love and were married. John later states in the end that Jane "looked like Christmas morning" to him on the day they met.

In reality, John and Jane are both skilled assassins working for different firms, both among the best in their field. Each is concealing their true profession from their spouse. Under these cover stories, John and Jane balance their apparently mundane marriage – which both of them find after a few years to be growing dull and suffocating – with their secretive work. When both are assigned to kill prisoner Benjamin "The Tank" Danz (Adam Brody) during a transfer, they encounter each other on the job and the hit ends up being botched. After their respective companies find out about the botched hit, they are assigned to discover and eliminate the other.

After a few "mild" attempts on each other's lives, fueled by a mutual sense of betrayal, the marital spat culminates in a high-octane fight in the Smith house. After a long, evenly-matched fight, with their house shot to shambles, they wind up with guns in each other's faces. John balks, and lays his gun down; Jane finds she cannot shoot her spouse either, and both succumb to their love instead. Mr. and Mrs. Smith reunite and make love.

The newly-rekindled Smith partnership is quickly threatened by their employers, who have now decided to eliminate the couple. John's best friend and coworker, Eddie (Vince Vaughn), turns down a bounty of $400,000 for each Smith (since he won't get out of bed for anything less than $500,000), but John and Jane find themselves under fire from an army of assassins. Fending off an attack which blows up their house, the Smiths steal their neighbor's minivan and successfully destroy their attackers' three pursuing armored BMWs saloons, all while bickering over their fighting styles and newly-discovered personal secrets.

After meeting with Eddie, the Smiths decide to fight together to preserve their marriage. They kidnap Danz from his high-security prison in order to give their employers something they want more than the Smiths. Danz reveals that he was merely bait, hired jointly by their employers after it was discovered that the Smiths were married, in the hopes of having one Smith kill the other. John and Jane forgo their separate contingency plans and make their stand together. In the final fight scene of the film, the Smiths – now working smoothly together as a team – defeat an extended attack by a large force of armed personnel during a long shoot-out inside a department store.

The film ends with the couple meeting the marriage counselor again, where the Smiths state how much their marriage has thrived and how happy they really are, with John motioning a subtle "10" when asked about the "sex question" once more. An alternate ending is also available for the film. In it, John and Jane escape to Italy and are in the marketplace when Jane begins to panic, seemingly losing track of a target in the area. After a brief search, the two locate their daughter, who proceeds to shoot, with a toy gun, a hanging doll with precise aim.

Cast

• Brad Pitt as John Smith
• Angelina Jolie as Jane Smith
• Vince Vaughn as Eddie
• Kerry Washington as Jasmine
• Adam Brody as Benjamin "The Tank" Danz
• Keith David as Grandad 'JO'
• Michelle Monaghan as Gwen
• Angela Bassett (uncredited) as Voice of Mr. Smith's boss
• William Fichtner (uncredited) as Voice of Dr. Waxler – Marriage Counselor

Background

Screenwriter Simon Kinberg came up with the idea for the film after listening to a couple of his friends who were in therapy for their marriage. Kinberg noticed that the way they were describing it sounded "aggressive and mercenary" and he "thought it would make an interesting template for a relationship inside of an action film."^[1]

Music

Two soundtrack albums were released from the film: a film score composed by John Powell, and a soundtrack with songs used in the film. The albums were released at different times to avoid confusion; the former was released on June 28, and the latter on June 7, 2005.

Score track listing

1. Bogota
2. The Bedroom
3. Playing House
4. Assignments
5. His and Her Hits
6. Office Work
7. Desert Foxes
8. John and Jane's Identity
9. Dinner
10. Hood Jump
11. Mutual Thoughts
12. John Drops In
13. Tango De Los Asesinos
14. Two Phone Calls
15. Kiss And Make Up
16. Minivan Chase
17. Shopping Spree
18. Dodging Bullets
19. The Next Adventure

Soundtrack track listing

1. "Love Stinks" – The J. Geils Band
2. "Nothin' but a Good Time" – Poison
3. "Tainted Love" – Soft Cell
4. "Baby, Baby" – Amy Grant
5. "Express Yourself" (Mocean Worker Remix) – Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band
6. "Mondo Bongo" - Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
7. "Lay Lady Lay" – Magnet featuring Gemma Hayes
8. "I Melt with You" – Nouvelle Vague
9. "Nobody Does It Better" – 8mm
10. "Let’s Never Stop Falling in Love" – Pink Martini
11. "Tango De Los Asesinos (Assassin’s Tango)" – John Powell
12. "Used to Love Her (But I Had To Kill Her)" - Voodoo Glow Skulls
13. "You Are My Sunshine" – Stine J.
14. "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" – The Righteous Brothers
15. "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" - Air Supply
16. "You Give Love a Bad Name" – Bon Jovi
17. "Love Will Keep Us Together" – Captain & Tennille

Release

Box office

The film grossed approximately $478,336,279 worldwide.^[2]

Reception

Mr. & Mrs. Smith received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 58% based on 203 reviews, with an average score of 6/10^[3]. At the website Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received a rating average of 55, based on 41 reviews, which it ranks as "mixed or average reviews"^[4]. Simon Braund in Empire gave the film a positive review, describing it as "A full-on action flick, subversive rom-com and weapons-grade star vehicle that's drenched in Tinseltown glitz, from a director who knows how to put the money on the screen while his tongue's firmly in his cheek"^[5]. Daniel Saney on Digital Spy gave the film four stars out of five, saying "Its ideas are often borrowed, and it’s hardly deep and meaningful, but it’s a fantastically fun film"^[6]. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times praised the chemistry between the lead actors, saying "What makes the movie work is that Pitt and Jolie have fun together on the screen, and they're able to find a rhythm that allows them to be understated and amused even during the most alarming developments"^[7]. In a negative review, Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle described the film as "awful" and went on to state: "The tiny smidgen of cleverness on display here is contained entirely in the premise. The follow-through is nonexistent"^[8].

Home media

A two-disc unrated version of the film was released on DVD on June 6, 2006. On the original DVD version during a commentary with the director, he mentions that he was not able to use as much sex and violence as they had originally filmed to meet the PG-13 rating.

Adaptations

In 2007, a pilot for a spin-off television series was made for the ABC network. Set six months after the end of the film, it was written by Simon Kinberg and directed by Doug Liman. Kinberg described the proposed TV series as "Married... with Children with guns."^[9] The roles of John and Jane were played by Martin Henderson and Jordana Brewster. On website The Futon Critic, Brian Ford Sullivan criticised the chemistry between Henderson and Brewster and ended his review stating: "While there's always a few gems that get locked away in the networks' vaults each year, this decidedly isn't one of them"^[10]. ABC decided not to commission the series^[11].

In June 2010, Angelina Jolie revealed that she and Brad Pitt had inquired about a sequel to the film but were dissatisfied with the story. Jolie stated:"We did ask somebody to look into Mr. & Mrs. to see if they could crack a sequel, but there wasn’t anything original. It was just, Well, they’re going to get married, or they’ve got kids, or they get separated. Never great.”.^[12]

In February 2010, it was reported that Regency Enterprises was developing a prequel to the film which would be titled Mr. and Mrs. Jones and would not feature either Pitt or Jolie. The story would follow a pair of spies who pose as a married couple when they graduate agency training. Akiva Goldsman is attached to produce^[13].

In July, it was announced that Hong Kong studio New Asia Entertainment Group would be producing a remake entitled Assassin Couple. The film will star Donnie Yen and Cecilia Cheung in the lead roles and the studio revealed that while it would share some similarities with Mr. & Mrs. Smith, it would feature a new storyline. The budget for the film has been set at $18.7 million and filming is scheduled to start in March 2012^[14].

References

External links

• Mr. & Mrs. Smith at the Internet Movie Database
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith at the TCM Movie Database
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith at AllRovi
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith at Metacritic
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith at Box Office Mojo