ate and mate? Mate and date? Girl and spy? Spy and girl? When Tom Cruise throttled into action hero mode the Hollywood dishwasher inevitably repeats the same cycle. More’s the pity, since here’s a script that given more wryness, less bang-bang and tighter focus might have aspired to the screwball status that once gave romantic thrillers their wacky pizzazz.
So, girl car restorer June (Cameron Diaz) “meets” hunky but misunderstood secret agent/killing machine Roy (Tom Cruise) at the Wichita airport; they’re on the same flight. Segue to June’s goo-goo eyes and Roy’s “I’m just defending myself…” bam-bam scene on the plane; segue to Roy trying to get back on track, June suddenly in tow; segue to smitten June’s confusion (read “I’m in”); segue to adventures in Brooklyn and Austria and Spain.
There are requisite good guy-bad guy lines about roguish Roy: “He’s dangerously out of control,” and requisite damsel-in-distress girl lines, from June to Roy: “Who are you!” and “Please stop shooting people!” (The death toll a half-hour in stands at about 30, double or nothing by the end).
Finally, though, empowered June-girl and nine-lives Roy-boy are in mostly comic cahoots and girl feels safe and secure with boy, who despite all his blam is just your average Eagle Scout with a heart of gold trying against the odds to save a high school mad scientist who’s invented a pocket-pen that can power cities. The silliness comes in sweet spurts, as in Roy kidnapping June and telling terrified diners: “No one follow us or I’ll kill myself and then her.” Now, that would make for an interesting move.
Dating sites take note; Roy makes girl-melting omelet, and true girl power means knowing your transmission. (Oh, note to evil arms dealer: The Azores are not in the tropics…)
