Selina Pearson | On 27, Jan 2014

Director: James Mangold
Cast: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Dano
Certificate: 12
Watch Knight and Day online in the UK: Amazon Prime / Prime Video (Buy/Rent) / Apple TV (iTunes) / TalkTalk TV / Google Play

June (Diaz) is trying to get back home to Boston for her sister’s wedding. She’s running around Wichita airport dragging a suitcase full of car parts attempting to make a last minute flight. She keeps bumping into a tall, dark, handsome stranger – well, actually, it’s Roy Miller, played by Tom Cruise, to whom not all those adjectives can be applied. Once on the plane, June’s flight is far from smooth: through a bizarre series of events, everyone onboard ends up dead. Apart from her and Miller.

June’s life isn’t the same after her brush with death. She starts getting tailed by federal-sunglasses-and-gun types, led by Fitzgerald (Sarsgaard), intent on making her “safe”. She gets picked up by Miller again, who convinces her that she’ll be much safer with him. He drugs her, repeatedly, and they end up halfway around the world with a nerdy kid straight out of high school (Dano), who has come up with a quality, thermodynamics-busting MacGuffin (screw you, laws of physics).

Never one to let reality interfere with a good old-fashioned dumb action film, James Mangold follows up 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line with this frivolous rom-com thriller. The film has a familiar feel to it, but that’s no bad thing – the life of a normal person getting hopelessly entangled in espionage owes as much to the Bourne movies as it does to classics like North by Northwest.

The pace keeps up as June jets around the world (often unconscious), trailed by the US government and arms dealers. There are fights everywhere that Photoshop will allow – on the motorway, in a warehouse, through the streets of Pamplona, chased by bulls. The cast know they’re in for something stupid and never take themselves too seriously; Cruise especially seems to take great joy in lampooning his own character from Mission: Impossible. Sparking up chemistry with Cameron, it is in fact a testament to Cruise’s charm and acting ability that you are able to forget his, erm, “extracurricular activities”.

Knight and Day is available to watch online on Amazon Prime Video as part of a Prime membership or a £5.99 monthly subscription.

 

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