If you like Reese Witherspoon – and you should, because she’s irresistible – watch How Do You Know, or Election, or almost any of her two dozen films from the past 20 years. If you like Tom Hardy – and you should, because he’s the most exciting new star in ages – watch Warrior (or Bronson, if you have the stomach for it), harnessing his singular combination of animal violence and baby-faced softness. If you like Chris Pine – and you can if you want to, it’s a free country – watch Star Trek, where Captain Kirk is at least a good fit for his smarmy cockiness. If you like director McG – and you should, because he’s oh-so-stylish – watch Charlie’s Angels, or its even more delirious sequel.
And what about This Means War? Well, that’s quite good as well, but somehow less than the sum of its very desirable parts. Maybe it’s because it’s so high-concept, the kind of film you feel you’ve seen just by reading the plot: two secret agents fall for the same woman and soon end up using their CIA skills against each other, their “gentleman’s agreement” escalating into all-out war. Everything is much as expected, though the weapons used are mostly surveillance and secret cameras – it’s a rom-com, not an action movie, though there’s action as well – and the boys’ friendship is tweaked with trendy ‘bromance’, i.e. lots of manly “I love you”s.
McG shows his chops with a bright pop aesthetic, especially the 60s-style yellows and greens in Reese’s workplace; the pace is snappy, kicking off with Ethan Hunt heroics – shoot-outs and high-wire acrobatics on a skyscraper roof – then seguing into Reese’s sad single life, coached by her bawdy best friend (Chelsea Handler) who gets her into online dating. Tom is also looking for love – he leads a double life, posing as a mild-mannered travel agent even for his ex-wife and young son – and replies to her ad. ‘You’re not a serial killer, right?’ asks Reese, nervous about this whole online business. Of course not, he replies lightly. “So you’ve never killed anyone with your bare hands?” Hmm, awkward question.
The film tries for airy sophistication, with mixed success. Chris courts reluctant Reese by crashing one of her focus groups (she’s a marketing maven) and launching innuendo-laden barbs about the grill she’s demonstrating (the grill has no spark, its lid is stiff and uptight, etc). The guys use CIA surveillance to find out what she thinks of them, and act accordingly: smarmy Chris takes her to an animal shelter to show he doesn’t only think of himself, low-key Tom takes her paintballing to prove he’s not safe and boring. They sneak into her house, prowling around behind her – a sequence wisely played as a musical number, to underline its non-realism; like its title, This Means War needs to be a bit cartoonish, or it won’t work at all.
It does work, or at least it’s never dull – but nothing really registers, except perhaps Handler’s bad-girl relentlessness and the not-exactly-hidden subtext that, in the age of the Patriot Act, the US government can spy on you anytime, anywhere. Tom (playing the more interesting character) gets forgotten slightly in the second half. The plot sags, roping in an action climax with generic rent-a-baddies. The whole gentleman’s agreement thing (especially the puzzling stipulation that neither rival should have sex with Reese) is a non-starter. Really, the film needs to go in one of two directions: either escalate the romantic-rival violence to surreal comic proportions, like they did with the divorcing couple in The War of the Roses (1989), or else the opposite, scale it down and turn into an intelligent rom-com about macho men slowly finding out what women want. Instead it stays in the middle – fizzy and shallow without being especially funny or provocative (or anything, really). All these people can do better, and in fact they have.
DIRECTED BY McG
STARRING Chris Pine, Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon
US 2012 98 mins.
