Knight and Day - Long Knight of a Former Star




20th Century Fox
Rated:
Duration: 100min
Category: action
Available: In Theatres
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Knight and Day is a bit old fashioned. It felt like an 80s romantic comedy (a la Bird on a Wire), the kind of action comedy they were making when Tom Cruise was becoming a star. Perhaps that's on purpose? Perhaps someone is looking to try to recapture something that's been lost.

Knight and Day, with one of those interchangeable, meaningless titles, has got a fairly silly and unbelievable plot which mainly functions to keep the leads' lives intertwined. For the first hour and 15 minutes I thought it was a decent guilty-pleasure, sort of forgettable flick. Unfortunately the ending gets sillier and sillier and the suspension of disbelief burden becomes far to great to make it enjoyable anymore. This crew should have known when to cut their losses and call it quits while they were ahead.

Cruise and Diaz have little to no chemistry so Cruise's attempt to recharge some of his 80s and 90s leading man appeal just doesn't fly. He seems a bit desperate at times and is starting to look a bit tired for this sort of game. He should be trying to age gracefully into a more sophisticated kinds of action roles (like in Valkyrie) but here he feels a little past his prime. Instead he's playing the kind of part he has played in the past. Nothing new. The whole romantic comedy part seems forced, like they are going through the motions.

The action is fairly good even if the plot holding it together is questionable. However, the film doesn't feel like it's trying to hang its hat on the action it keeps going for the romantic comedy and this is a failing. They should have recognized which part of the film was stronger and went with that. So between entertaining action sequences we get less than entertaining romantic comedy.

Knight and Day feels like a throw back where everyone is trying too hard. It starts out a bit charming but wears out its welcome. By the end we're looking at our watches and wondered what happened to this former leading man.


Review By: Collin Smith

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