Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Doug Liman’s 2005 film is not about contract killing. It opens in a marriage counsellor’s office and stages every gunfight that follows as a continuation of that session. Who John and Jane work for is kept deliberately vague, and the rival agencies carry no weight. That tells you what the film is not offering: no conspiracy to unpick, no named antagonist to beat. Two production choices explain its texture. The story appears to take place in New York, yet almost all of it was shot in Los Angeles, with the passage presented as Bogotá filmed downtown and on Olvera Street. The closing shootout happening among home furnishings is no accident: it was staged inside a real store in City of Industry that was about to be demolished, so the couple wrecks a showroom of domestic life. The shoot was unsettled. Nicole Kidman was cast as Jane first, Pitt walked away when she left, and the pairing steadied only once Jolie signed. Production paused three months, ran twenty six million dollars over budget, and forty odd alternative endings were written before the original was kept. Best for someone who came to watch two stars measure each other inside a frame and accepts that the weight sits in the domestic rows. A poor fit for anyone wanting a coherent chain of missions.