Year: 2010
Director: James Mangold
Screenplay: Patrick O'Neill
Starring: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard
I didn't expect to dislike Knight and Day as much as I did, but alas, as the film had me storming out out the cinema while it was trying desperately to be funny with a predictable post credit piece of nonsense.
Desperate is the perfect word for this. Knight and Day hopelessly struggles to be entertaining with it's homages to generally better films (see North by Northwest, Dr No). The problem is it's hard to be an entertaining movie when your nothing but a vanity project for it's leads.
I like Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise. In fact I have a lot of time for them as stars. But this film, coming out months after the teen year old panty wetting farce that is Eclipse, almost suggest that both Diaz and Cruise are worried about their relevance. It would explain the CONSTANT close ups of the stars, which seemed to be used for the reason that the audience may be so dim witted that we'll forget who we're watching. Now I understand that audiences do enjoy looking at the beautiful people when they go to the cinema but sometimes, just sometimes they also enjoy a movie with something that resembles a story also. I know it's hard for some Hollywood executives to get that into their thick skulls...but seriously, I must ask...where the fucking screenplay to this movie?
This is a film with no real notion of plot at all. There's illusion of structure, but it is simply that, an illusion. What you get is a series of transitions, punctuated by CGI action and chase scenes and little else. Is the action exciting? No, because the over use of digital imagery gives very sequence a lack of physicality. However, when your watching a film which can't even be bothered to give it's characters actual character then how can you feel excited by the constant barrage of chaos? It is a film where I truly felt no risk at all.
Knight and Day is also (supposedly) a comedy, but it's "best joke" is a running gag involving Diaz's June being drugged...constantly. Amusing. If your looking for anything particularly witty or droll you'd be better off renting all the films Knight and Day wishes it could be. If only this film had the gull to even consider having an actual script, then they wouldn't have had to rely on improvised dialogue thought up before the days shooting. Tom Cruise ain't no Will Farrell.
Bland, Garish and not at all entertaining, Knight and Day is an uninteresting mess. That's it. No witty finishing aside, no clever last line, nothing. If the film can't be bothered to try, I don't think I should either.
