Knight and Day

This film serves as an interesting contrast to The Expendables. Neither film, really, was conceived with much (if any) artistic integrity. Both of these films were written and shot as a job of work. But while neither has much art, what Knight and Day has, and The Expendables lacks, is craft.

The basis of this film is pretty standard; Hero has the Plot Device, Bad Guys want the Plot Device, Girl gets caught up in it all, chasing ensues until Bad Guy is defeated and Plot Device is resolved in some way. It's North By Northwest, and probably a hundred other films. Now, this film is no North By Northwest by any means, but it is a reasonably slick romantic comedy thriller, which makes some pretty modest promises, and delivers on them. Tom Cruise is very amusing as an ultra-competent spy, so unflappable that he's able to be polite and reassuring at all times to his hapless charge, which plays out as a pretty understated running joke that keeps the film spinning along nicely. Cameron Diaz does her textbook ditzy girl thing, panicking and freaking out, but slowly getting the hang of it at a pretty reasonable pace. There's a great sequence where they're apparently on the run, but he keeps slipping her knockout drops because it's easier to carry her unconscious. Hence, she keeps briefly waking up in increasingly ludicrous and dangerous situations, like being in a dank prison cell with him suspended from the ceiling by his ankles, having to bail out of a crashing plane, etc, each time with him being all "don't worry, I know this looks bad, but it's all under control..." They've basically taken the standard spy plot, but highlighted how silly it all is, and it works.

I'd like to say that it keeps the momentum up throughout the film, but alas, that's not the case. About half an hour from the end, there's a bit of a lull, where they've lost their way and don't really know what to do, and it doesn't really get back on track before the last ten minutes.

Action and stunts wise, there's some imaginative setpiece work. None of the stunts really seem to have any purpose other than to say "wouldn't it be cool to see Tom Cruise do this", but, in fairness, they are pretty cool stunts.

Overall, though, this is a quite enjoyable summer blockbuster. A light frothy milkshake of a movie. It's more a framework to justify some fun scenes than a coherent narrative, but on the other hand, never forgets that this sort of film is supposed to be fun.