ALLIED
The last new featured release and one that turned into an Oscar pretender is Robert Zemeckis’ Allied. The romantic thriller set during WWII stars Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard. I saw it once in theaters last fall and I have difficulty in recalling moments. The one moment that sticks out (like a sore thumb) is Pitt and Cotillard’s sex scene inside a car while a sandstorm swirls around. The reason I can recall it is because there is hardly any damage to the car, the paint barely blemished.
With the triple threat of Zemeckis, Pitt, and Cotillard and Steven Knight (Locke, FX’s “Taboo”) handling the script, you’d expect something exemplary, not forgettable. For starters, the core conflict – whether or not Cotillard’s character (a former French Resistance fighter) might be a German sleeper agent – begins late into the film. Such a development should at least start a quarter of the way through a two-hour feature. Its placement derails performances and momentum. Allied aspires to be Casablanca in terms of setting and period, but Bogart and Bergman will always have Paris. Allied, not so much.
For those that want to get more in-depth coverage on the making of the film, both the Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases of Allied come with 10 featurettes that add up to close to one hour’s worth of behind-the-scenes footage. Viewers will get background on the story, production design and costumes, actors Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard, plus weapons, vehicles, and film score.
