Knight and Day is fun. That’s it. There’s not much more to it. It runs with the formula we’ve seen countless times, and does it well enough to be enjoyable. The main reason why it works though: Tom Cruise. The fact of the matter is, he’s extremely likable and charming. He always has been and hopefully this will get him back on the mainstream’s good side.
Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) is an CIA agent gone rogue. June Havens (Cameron Diaz) is a small town girl who repairs cars… Yes, Diaz as a grease monkey makes you have to suspend your disbelief more than the ludicrous action scenes themselves. After an unusual plane ride they both get entangled in ways they never thought they would. June soon gets picked up after an incident involving Miller by some government lackeys, led by the wasted Peter Sarsgaard as “Fitzgerald.” Fitzgerald informs her Miller has stolen something top secret, has gone rogue, and is a bit of psychopath. Miller said they would say this about him, so of course she doesn’t believe them. Moments later Miller comes to the rescue for June and they go on the run together. From there on it all plays out like you’d expect– there’s no real need to describe what ends up the final half.
This is a film with a battery as a MacGuffin. Once you find this out, it’s even more apparent Knight and Day doesn’t take itself all too seriously. It has a very light and playful tone, never becomes melodrama or overly serious. It’s all very over-the-top. If anything makes you question the tone, it’s the major contradiction within the story itself. At first, it seems as if James Mangold and Co. are poking fun at all the True Lies in the world. There’s a great line where Cruise says he’s going to have a talk with some agents, but elaborates he’s really just going to kill them. That line is obviously one of the biggest action movie cliches and it pokes fun at many more of them greatly. For the first two acts, it works extremely well at doing so. It keeps this nature consistent, but somehow loses it in the third act. It’s a bit similar to Kick-Ass where it becomes the movie it was at first parodying, but here it’s even more damaging. That’s the point where the film divulges almost into self-parody. The pacing starts to feel off and you just wish they live up to what they started.
Does Diaz end up becoming the bad-ass action hero at the end of the day like you expect? Yes, she does. It’s always a bit laughable when an average Joe turns into the action hero at the end of the day. Does anyone really ever buy this transformation? It hardly ever works. This all plays into the third act’s issues. The climax’s problem isn’t that it doesn’t end big- it does- but not in the way you’d hoped or been promised it would. It becomes the paint-by-numbers film you expect that doesn’t take any chances. (Spoiler Warning) There’s a subplot introduced that Miller may actually be a bad guy and is just using June. When this comes into play you know right-away it’s not true and yet you still have to put up with fifteen minutes of the film trying to convince you it is, but the fact of the matter is, it’s not going to take a chance like that. It would’ve been great if it did, but instead settles for aiming low. (Spoiler Over)
Mangold’s eye for action is also a standout-out. Mangold, thankfully, lets the camera breathe during every action beat. Even in the opening fight that takes place in a plane — which is quite excellent — he manages to create a great sense of geography despite the fact he’s shooting in such a blocked in area. There’s never a single moment that is incomprehensible. There’s no frantic cutting and he never sticks the camera in too close. As for Cruise, he can still handle the action side of things. He can be killing people left and right and yet still be charming — no easy feat. Diaz can’t quite hold her own with Cruise, but she’s decent enough. She’s a bit stuck — like many glamorous actresses — where it’s a bit difficult to nail down the average joe thing due to the persona and image tied to them. Diaz also doesn’t sell the action moments in the end. She’s not convincing enough where she needs to be. Finally, it must be said it’s quite odd when Paul Dano shows up. He seems very out-of-place and you question the makeup job someone did for that mustache he has to wear– you’ll understand when you see it.
It’s still quite disappointing that Knight and Day ends the way that it does. You feel as if there was once a clever and worthy climax there, but ultimately someone had their way of turning it into a generic one. That still doesn’t mean the first two acts and the film itself isn’t a whole lot of well done summer fun, but it just means this ends up being just another action movie we’ve seen before. Nothing more.