Knight and Day | Print |  E-mail
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Looking at herself in the mirror of an airliner bathroom, June isn't sure how to deal with her current situation. After all, this Roy Miller guy sitting across the aisle from her in coach is handsome and charming. And he's got a good line … a great line, actually. But she's just an average girl who's made more than her share of average girl mistakes. And she sure doesn't want this guy to be another one of them. So after a little personal pep talk, she decides to just go back to her seat and shut him out.

Image Roy, however, is sitting there with puppy dog eyes and a couple of mixed drinks on hand. He gives June one to sip. And he starts joking about having killed the pilot, saying he'll have to land the plane himself.  June has always been a sucker for a handsome guy with a sense of humor.

Then everything tips sideways. Literally. The truth is that Roy wasn't actually joking. In fact, everyone on the plane except for the two of them is dead. Between Roy's quick stories of assassins and worldwide intrigue, and him crash-landing the plane in a cornfield, and her passing out from drugs slipped into her booze, well, the rest of the night is just a blur for June.

When she wakes up the next morning in her own bed and finds little warnings from Roy on Post-it notes scattered around her house, two things quickly become clear: 1) That wasn't just some crazy dream she had. 2) Getting on that flight may have been the biggest average girl mistake June has ever made.

:: Review
On the face of things, there's something very appealing about a movie like Knight and Day. Part of it is the film's jet-setting save-the-world intrigue combined with whiz-bang adventure. Another likable side is the comedic tug and pull of a love story between an enigmatic spy and a pretty-but-frazzled gal-next-door.

As for the spy himself, he's completely poised and affable with almost superhuman spy-guy chops. A fellow who can be bound and swinging upside down in a dungeon torture chamber and still assure you with, "I got this. I'll be down in a couple minutes." I mean, James Bond and Jason Bourne have nothing on Roy Miller.

The whole cinematic affair bops along from tropical isle to the Austrian Alps with a kind of "wait till you see what we've got up our sleeves" charm that fits the current Hollywood action-comedy formula to a T. But while it's tempting to want to chomp on your popcorn and just take a carefree ride on the espionage back-flips and playful charm, there was something here that couldn’t be ignored. It was the killer called Roy Miller.

He's presented as a guy who'd take a bullet for you. (Or at least he'd take a bullet for somebody as pretty as Cameron Diaz.) But what about the dozens of people he puts bullets in? What about the nice-guy fireman he plugs? Or all the government men who aren't really bad guys, just working agents like Roy, serving God and country?

All too often there's a smudging of the crisp lines of right and wrong when it comes to a high-flying actioner like this. And we rationalize away a hero who'll blot out a life without a moment's hesitation because, well, a spy's gotta do what a spy's gotta do. Roy'll do the right thing in the end … right? I can't help wondering if there aren't already more than enough things in life that are nudging us toward moral ambiguity. Do our heroes really need to be smudgers as well?

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