Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Poor Doug Liman (Go, Bourne Supremacy). He made a challenging and excellent romantic comedy that looks and acts like an action-thriller starring two of the most beautiful people on the planet; he managed to pull off a tricky balance of tone and exploit some truly sparkling chemistry, and the result is a brilliant mash-up of War of the Roses, Grosse Pointe Blank and a spy thriller. Unfortunately, it will be remembered as the film where stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie met. In fact, the psychiatrist's office "marriage counsellor" scenes featured throughout the film were all filmed the very first day the pair met, and the sparks are absolutely evident. While the film, which concerns two world-class assassins who are married to each other yet remain unaware of the other's secret life, looks for all the world like a blow-'em-up action flick, in structure and focus it shares more in common with a romantic comedy. Credit goes to Liman — coming off the jittery camera-obsessed Bourne — for taking a different and entirely ambitious approach. Surprisingly, backstage evidence revealed on this DVD demonstrates budget and time constraints that hampered Liman's vision, despite the fact that the ammunition budget alone on Smith was bigger than the entire budget of Liman's breakthrough film, 1996's Swingers. He gets some help from old friends in the form of Swingers star Vince Vaughn, who steals a number of scenes as Pitt's mom-obsessed co-worker, but the focus remains on the unbelievable Pitt and Jolie. Deleted scenes include an insanely action-packed shootout sequence (cut to focus more on the relationship), but a "making a scene" featurette is perfunctory; Liman dishes a bit of dirt on his commentary with screenwriter Simon Kinberg, but two more commentaries by producers and crew seem like overkill for a DVD that features no participation from its stars. The "dirt" on the "behind the scenes" love triangle of Pitt, Jolie and Jennifer Aniston won't be found here, but it's a shame that that's what Mr. & Mrs. Smith will be remembered for. (Fox)