Allied 2016

     The setting for this film is the middle of WWII in 1942.  Royal Canadian Air Force paratrooper Max Vatan is dropped into the desert of Morocco.  A car picks up Wing Commander Vatan and he is taken to meet Parisian Marianne Beausejour.  She is a member of the French Resistance.  Their mission is to assassinate the German Ambassador in Casablanca.  Max and Marianne need to convince everyone that they are a happily married couple.  Marianne helps Max with his French and his Paris accent.  After their mission, Max and Marianne leave for England, they plan to marry and have a family.  They have a baby girl during an air raid and they name her Ana.

     It’s a relief that this film is not full of intense battle scenes and many wounded soldiers!!  It’s more on a par with Casablanca of 1942.  Both films begin in Casablanca, Morocco and end at a plane.  The photography of the desert is very beautiful and I found it interesting for a German plane to be shot down in a backyard?  3 1/2* (I liked this movie)

124 min, Action directed by Robert Zemeckis with Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Jared Harris, Xavier De Guillebon, Camille Cottin, Vincent Latorre, August Diehl, Anton Blake, Daniel Betts, Sally Messham.

Note:  Imdb 7.1 out of 10, 60% critic 65% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 4*, Metacritic 60 out of 100 with 44 critics 6.6 out of 10 with 167 reviews, Amazon 4.0 out of 5 with 237 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Canary Islands, Spain; London, England, UK, Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.  Cotillard tutored Pitt for his French dialog.  Inspiration for the costumes came from Casablanca of 1942 and Now, Voyager of 1942.  This is Pitt’s fourth WWII movie, Inglourious Basterds 2009, Beyond All Boundaries 2009 and Fury 2014.  In a scene with Pitt reading a novel, the book is Brighton Rock by Graham Greene.