Knight and Day

Knight and Day

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After watching Knight and Day I came to the conclusion it should be renamed to “Deus Ex Machina”. This is the first movie that I know of that incorporates this mechanism multiple times. We follow the character of June, played by Cameron Diaz who “accidentally” runs into the character of Roy, played by Tom Cruise, who turn out to be a super spy. One of those movie-spies who go to no lengths into hiding their identity because they’re always fighting off enemies, in gunfights and blowing things up. She follows him around because the sudden events that surround her make that her only option. But being a simple civilian who is suddenly thrown into the world of gunfights and crashing planes this leads to multiple panic attacks after which Roy decides to drug her out. Since the audience is supposed to identify themselves with June, the action stops here for us too and the next thing we see is what June sees after waking up. This technique is used several times to end in the middle of a scene and go to the next one.

While certainly original it does feel a bit of a cheat, because the solutions to getting out of a tight spot are what is the most fun. It reminded me of “IT”, the movie with the killer clown. In a preview on TV there was this great scene when a kid was attacked in the showers and It came out of a drain. The preview stopped and to know how it ended you had to go rent the movie. When I finally saw it it just turned out that after that It simply disappeared and did nothing to the kid. A disappointing conclusion of a thrilling scene and that is what Knight & Day incorporates many times.

The center of the movie focuses on two things: the love interest between June and Roy and a McGuffin. What the McGuffin is doesn’t matter to the plot, but it should have. It now is some battery that seemingly never dies, but it could have better been a teleporting device. The movie seems to lose track of time very easily because the two leads are globetrotting while time hardly seems to go buy. One minute they’re in America, the next they’re on a deserted tropical island. Austria and Spain are also visited without ever going through a time zone or experiencing jet-lag. A simple teleporting-device would have solved that, and it would perfectly fit in this movie where the laws of time and physics seem to in-exist.

Being born in the late 70s I grew up with Tom Cruise in the 80s and 90s and was just discovering what was so nice about girls when Cameron Diaz popped up in The Mask. But now it is 2010 and time seems to take its toll on the actors. The 40+ year old actors seem a bit too old for roles like this. At certain moments I got an over-the-hill feeling seeing these two run around like people in their 20s. But I do have to add that their physique is still pretty good when they’re walking around in their bathing suits.

I should no make more of Knight and Day than it actually is; a simple crowd-pleaser with nothing more on its agenda than to entertain. And entertaining it is. Even though the characters are never in any real danger, Roy is too confident about everything and never seems to be in any trouble he can’t handle. There are many humorous moments and the movie never seems to take itself seriously, so I’m not doing so either.

Knight And Day Screenshot

Knight And Day Poster
Knight And Day Poster
Knight and Day
  • Year:
    2010
  • Director:
    • James Mangold
  • Cast:
    • Tom Cruise
    • Cameron Diaz
    • Peter Sarsgaard
    • Jordi Mollà
  • Genres:
    Action, Comedy, Romance
  • Running time:
    109m

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