The concept is so clever it's almost irritating—Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as a boring suburban couple who are, unbeknownst to each other, two of the world's top assassins. The contrast between their work and home lives is inherently comedic—indeed, watching Brad Pitt clipping his fingernails while Angelina Jolie brushes her teeth, both bored out of their fucking skulls, is about as genuinely, classically funny a gag as a movie audience can get these days. The premise keeps the first half of the movie afloat, but when Jolie and Pitt discover each other's true identities and are assigned to take each other out, things really get cooking. The ensuing cat-and-mouse game leads to either the sexiest fight scene ever staged, or the most violent sex scene ever staged. I'm not actually sure whether I find it more erotic to watch the two having sex or beating the shit out of each other, so thankfully we get plenty of both here. The final act raises the stakes yet again, with the two deciding to stay together and fight their way out of their predicament—leading to some hilariously incongruous bickering. The entire movie plays off counterpoint so well, offsetting explosiveness with tenderness (the big car chase, for example, is set to "Making Love Out of Nothing at All"), that you simultaneously experience a great action movie and an extremely witty romantic comedy. It ain't the greatest offering from either genre, but it is certainly entertaining as hell. Pitt and Jolie are both terrific—Jolie's more or less in full Tomb Raider mode, while Pitt is more or less in Ocean's Eleven mode. He's an incredibly underrated comic actor, probably because people tend not to laugh while staring at THE PERFECT SIX-PACK ABS! Vince Vaughn, as Pitt's fellow assassin, proves that he can be kinda funny when he actually tries. And Adam Brody, who is about two cultural minutes from me wanting him to just go away, redeems himself by wearing a Fight Club T-shirt.
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