Small town girl June Havens has a fateful run-in with government agent Roy Miller that sends her into a battle between trust and truth. Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz reunite for the first time since 2001's Vanilla Sky, taking audiences on a wild ride in director James Mangold's action comedy Knight and Day.
June is flying from Kansas to Boston to attend her sister's wedding. Roy is a CIA agent who will stop at nothing to protect a teen genius and his valuable invention. As a result, Roy has just killed everyone aboard the plane, including the pilots. Roy's CIA partner Agent Fitzgerald says that Roy is a rogue agent who has stolen the teen's invention and is looking to sell it on the black market. This is where the battle of trust and truth comes into play. Roy wants June, who he just met, to trust him. But trust isn't an easy thing, especially when bodies are dropping all around you. A round the world battle ensues that is sure to leave your heart pounding and head spinning as you attempt to decipher just what is going on in this chaotic government nightmare.
With a runtime of just under two hours I am not surprised the film seemed to drag. The beginning sequence where Roy and June meet was long and unnecessary. Had they given the scene a hefty edit the movie would have jumped right into the action, adding a layer of unknown to the story; one that is eventually revealed later anyways.
There is the issue of the film flipping back and forth between whether June can trust Roy or not. Roy seems borderline schizophrenic as he manages to stay very calm during the most intense action sequences. At one point Roy tells June, "That is a very pretty dress" while clinging to the hood of a car during a high-speed chase. I'm not saying it is out of the realm of possibilities; it is just a little crazy and a sudden indication that Roy might not all be there. The flip-flopping lasts much of the movie, and for a while it is an interesting element to the story. But we do loose interest after the umpteenth time, begging for the film to just deal with the problem and end already.
I will say Knight and Day takes us back to the Tom Cruise that we love. He is charismatic, charming and borderline bat shit crazy. The film is ultimately a Jerry Maguire meets Mission Impossible affair, and who couldn't at least somewhat enjoy a film like that?
Throughout Knight and Day there were numerous fun over the top non-stop action scenes. The locations are ever changing, one second they are in Kansas, then Boston, a tropical island, and eventually traveling all over Europe. These changes in landscape keep the film interesting, and of course beautiful to look at. I would venture to say that Knight and Day is better then Killers, the Ashton Kutcher/Katherine Heigl movie that was released a few weeks ago, but that really isn't saying too much.
