Allied (2016)

This film truly was Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets Casablanca, only one of which I've seen.
Max (Brad Pitt) arrives in Casablanca, Morocco (taken over by the Nazis via the Vichy France government) where he poses as the husband of another spy who calls herself Christine (Marion Cotillard). They manage to pull off and complete their difficult mission, killing one of the German ambassadors and escape without being captured. In the time it takes them to set that up (about eight days), they have fallen in love and thanks to car sex in the middle of a sandstorm, are pregnant. So fortunately, Max is able to bring Christine, real name Marianne, back to England where they can get married for real.
They settle in London and happily raise their young daughter, Anna, and obtain chickens. Max continues to work with the government, at a desk job while Marianne seems fine with the typical era role of being a housewife though she does make new friends but then again, she was always the life of the party and a social butterfly.
Life seems fine until Max is called into the office on his day off where he is informed that his wife might be a spy. He can't believe it and the evidence they have against her is all circumstantial and even though he is told not to privately investigate her, he does anyway.
And then, he flies to France and breaks into a French prison where he meets Paul Delamare (Thierry Fremont) who knew Marianne back in 1941 before her mission was foiled and she moved on to Casablanca and though the two women are very similar, Marianne in 1941 knew how to play the piano.
So Max puts her to the test where she finally crumbles unable to play the piano under his tired, demanding gaze and she finally admits the truth. She was forced back into the field, she claims as the Germans threatened Anna's life and she loves Anna above all else.
Though Max knows that this would be committing treason, he decides to flee the country with his wife and daughter, killing her handles along the way and is caught at the airport. Marianne, upset at watching her husband kill so many and knowing that they are trapped, she commits suicide just so Anna will have one parent to raise her.
While the film is a good idea and an original one, I felt it could have been done better, creating more doubt and gray areas surrounding the actions of Marianne. And if the Germans did threaten Anna's life, she could have told her husband and I'm certain he would have made the problem go away. However, because she was a German spy, it did make clear why they were able to get away from the mass murder in Casablanca so easily without being followed. I would have liked to know why they were paired together in the first place when Max isn't French and he needed to be French for his character. And why was Marianne a German spy in the first place when it didn't appear that she was a Nazi? Also, there is the minor problem of a wrong sign appearing in the film. When Max goes to the airport, a sign stating 15 M.P.H. appears. This cannot be the case as they are in England which doesn't use miles, They use kilometers.
Still, the film was stylish and well acted and Brad Pitt's French was flawless, then again, I can't speak a word of the language. But the acting is good, and the two stars have excellent chemistry and their performances of flawed characters carry the film. The secondary characters including an underused Matthew Goode in a cameo role and Lizzy Caplan as Max's sister Bridget are wasted, which is a shame.
The film, I feel, would have benefited from being filmed as though it was actually created in the 1940s, with less violence, cursing and sex, emphasizing the ambiguity of Marianne's character. That would have been a far better film as the violence, cursing and sex added absolutely nothing to the film and once taken away would have allowed more time for character development and suspicion. Hitchcock would have done this plot justice, unfortunately great director Robert Zemeckis did not. Grade: B