Here is an example of where Netflix’s star-ratings initially seemed to get things wrong. The more I thought about it though, the more I agreed with their assessment. Maybe Netflix knows me better than I know myself.
Netflix’s DVD viewers give the Brad Pitt movie Allied a so-so 3.6 stars. It also figures that I won’t be quite so keen as even the average Netflix DVD viewer and suggests that I will be more likely to pick 3.5 stars (ignoring for the moment that I cannot select fractions). Allied is not currently available on Netflix’s streaming and it is pretty well down the list on my DVD queue. However, it is available (at time of watching) on Amazon’s free-with-Prime selection and, cruising through that list, seemed like the most appealing* of the lot (you know I’m a Pitt fan, don’t you?).
My very first impression, gleaned from the opening shot, is that they over did it with the CGI and the green screen. The film begins with Pitt’s character, Max Vatan, parachuting into the empty desert. It’s all rather spectacular but also obviously contrived. As the minutes rolled past, I began to appreciate this overdone aspect of the cinematography. It is a colorful and striking film, particular in its representation of Casablanca. I found myself admiring particular color schemes, camera angles, and other small details. Surely Netflix underestimated my appreciation for this work.
It takes a little more than half way through to get to the “point” of the film. When it became clear, I once again decided that it was my kind of movie. It is a fairly simple story, for all its setup. It’s a story that drags you in and makes you feel for the two main characters in the middle of this massive background of the Second World War. No, I’m not going to give away the plot although it is easy to unearth the “twist” if you want to.
In the end, the movie felt maybe a little smaller than when it started, but still satisfying. Surely a little better than the so-so 3.5 stars that it expected from me, right?
But then I started to think a little harder. As I said, the background is the Second World War and some very specific historical events. There is some Battle of Britain and some late hour preparations for the Normandy invasion and both these events seem to occur simultaneously. The problem is that these things occurred nearly four years apart! Once you get down to it and start to pick apart the historical details, you realize that Allied is chock full of anachronisms. Again, these are easily searchable if you want to find them so I won’t discuss the details. However, you can see (and as Netflix warned me) how my valuation of this film is going to get docked a star, star-and-a-half by being sloppy with history.
I will mention one featured plot point. I picked this out, immediately, as an anachronism. Vatan**, a Canadian pilot who now does intelligence work, is joined in the British intelligence service by his sister Bridget (played by Freaks and Geeks‘ Lizzy Caplan). Bridget is engaging in a blatant and apparently-decidedly hedonistic lesbian relationship with someone named Louise (played as non-speaking arm candy by Charlotte Hope). I happen to know (from watching The Imitation Game if nothing else) that homosexuality was then illegal in the United Kingdom.
Except that it wasn’t.
Sodomy was illegal in the UK and openly engaging in such might well get one tossed out of the intelligence services if not into prison. Lesbianism, however, was not proscribed. Whether openly gay women were as accepted into wartime society as is portrayed herein I’ll not speculate. I’m going to assume that the filmmakers are trying to make a point but I’ll not even bother to try to ascertain what that point might be. What I can’t say is that I was right and Zemeckis was wrong – because I was not.
In the end, the sins against history that are there, the overdone CGI, and the slightly-simplistic love story conspire to make that 3.5-4.0 stars rating just about where I’d want to put it. Some of Allied really works and some of it just doesn’t. I think the key to it all is approaching your viewing with the right mindset. Just relax, enjoy it, and try not to overthink it.
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*I actually started out watching a feature called Cold War. This is a Polish-language film which opened with Polish-language (and others) singing. It also opened with no subtitles, leaving me to scramble with the options for closed captioning. Netflix figures I’d like this a little better than I would Allied (3.6) and a decent chunk better than the average viewer (3.2). Maybe I will return to it but I just wasn’t in the mood the other night.
**The writers seem to be trying to do something artsy with the character names. Pitt’s character may be a homonym for a French version of “go to hell” or maybe just “go away.” Other suggestions are that it’s part of the phrase va t’en guerre meaning “go to war” and also used as a “warmonger.” It’s also similar to the Arabic word for homeland. His leading lady, played by frenchwoman Marion Cotillard is named Beauséjour, which translates to “nice stay.” Are they trying to tell us something? Better not to dwell on it, I think.