Review of Allied (2016) by Richard Y — 01 Jan 2017

At some point the adjective "Hitchcockian" has come to presuppose not only the motifs and themes that Hitchcock employed in his work, but their use by someone who most definitely is not Alfred Hitchcock.

For all the tools Robert Zemeckis has amassed over his career, nuance and subtlety are not in his arsenal. It's why The Walk - in which every frame is an unabashed celebration - can be so criminally underrated and Allied is just bloody criminal.

The script - which basically stretches a shock ending to cover two full acts - certainly doesn't help, but it's the way so many moments that need a gentle landing fall with a resounding thud that defines the film.

Pitt squanders the respect he's garnered for playing characters his own age by appearing opposite Lizzy Caplan as his sister, who's about twenty years younger than him and looks it.