Knight and Day
Director: James Mangold
Starring: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz
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The plot is highly implausible, but Cruise carries much of this action movie/romantic comedy, writes Emily Shardlow
Knight and Day Director: James Mangold Starring: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz
Knight and Day is a film that reunites Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise (they starred together in Vanilla Sky), but doesn't particularly stretch the acting capabilities of either.
Cruise is Roy Miller, a trained assassin who has gone rogue, and claims to be on a one-man mission to protect the Zephyr (a perpetual energy source) and its inventor Simon Feck (Paul Dano) from the (numerous) bad guys who are out to get them. The teeth are as white as ever, the biceps as toned, but this time there's a crazed gleam in his eye and a hint of humour in Cruise's delivery, which actually makes him quite watchable. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that he carries much of the film; the scenes involving Cruise fizz with an energy that is sorely missing whenever he exits stage left.
As June Havers, Diaz doesn't buck any trends; she seems happy to once again take on the supporting role of the slightly kooky, flaky female. This is something she does well, but you can't help but wonder if she ever wants to get her teeth into grittier, meatier roles. In this film at least, she remains the helpless, hapless female, who is abducted by Cruise's character after he crash-lands the plane that they are both on. In truth though, she should really count herself lucky to survive at all because he has slickly disposed of (read: killed) all the other passengers.
For much of the rest of the film Miller drags her around the world, in what is essentially one long high-octane chase scene. By train, plane and motorbike they hurtle through Spain, Austria and around the Caribbean, athletically evading deadly government agents along the way.
As action movie/romantic comedies go, this isn't a truly terrible one. It's not a great one either, though. In order to vaguely enjoy it, I'd advise that as well as switching off a portion of your brain, you also accept early on that the plot brings a whole new meaning to the word implausible. With that done, at least you can sit back and observe the frenzied chase scenes, which are, for the most part well choreographed, or better still just soak up the various stunning locations. Or you could as I did, guiltily, wonder how on Earth Tom Cruise still looks that good.
The movie definitely drags towards the end, and by no means do I advise anyone to seek it out with a zealous urgency. If it does happen to pop up on your screen sometime soon though, console yourself with the fact that it's an undemanding watch and certainly not the worst action film out there.
