Allied

Allied

The movie that is rumored to break up Branjalina does not live up to the hype. While it is an intriguing historical drama set in the middle of World War II, the famed love story is not developed enough for me to believe. Brad Pitt plays Max Vatan, a Canadian allied spy who is dropped in to Casablanca to meet up with Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard), a French Resistance fighter. Their task is to assassinate the German Ambassador to Morocco in under 10 days. The odds of their survival are low and the stress pushes them together. There are three noticeable moments when the film makers put effort into selling that the couple might be falling in love. None of which warrant Pitt’s abrupt turnaround from his earlier feelings that emotions cause people to make mistakes and die. His sudden proposal of Marianne coming to England and marrying him had me thinking it was some sort of plot twist later on and all part of the allied spy network but (SPOILER ALERT) it’s not. The whole thing had me wanting to love the film but by the ending feeling disappointed. The biggest concern with the film is that the entire premise is that Max and Marianne are deeply madly in love. When you can’t set that up in the first half-hour of buildup, there is something wrong. Eliminate the first quarter outside of England and the film increases in likability by tenfold. Pitt and Cotillard both put in excellent performances especially when the tension rises. The tension is constant throughout the film, just when you get a small reprieve from the central narrative, a subplot tense moment is hurled at you keeping you in suspense until the tension cranks back up in the main story-line. The viewer is never given the typical levity throughout the film to ease the adrenaline and being that it is a drama thriller and not an action thriller, this can get in the way of the enjoyment of the film. It just seems to drag itself along quite a bit, continuously finding minor ways to keep the pressure level high. Other than those issues it is a fine period piece, paying incredible attention to detail and giving a small insight on the German Blitz. 1 pipes out of 4.