Bond Girl’s Eye View: Knight and Day (2010)
Tom Cruise does Bond in 2010, with Cameron Diaz as the Bond girl. Only she is a civilian caught up in spy maneuvers beyond her understanding. With some great touches of realism, this movie seeks to explore what it would be like to be the Bond girl suddenly dragged into a Bondian world. Mostly screaming, jealousy and PTSD as well as frequently refusing to go any further, it turns out. (Although she has some ‘three weeks training’ moves mixed in with a lot of civilian panic).
Whilst it doesn’t all come together as strongly as it could have done, the greatness of this action thriller comes from knowing that it is probably is Tom Cruise running over roof tops or hanging off of a roof, having jumped from a perilous height.
Cameron Diaz adds steel, nicely timed comedy and intelligence to her fairly fluffy role as June, as Tom Cruise’s Roy seeks to start a romance, do his job, prove his innocence, protect a world shattering gadget and keep everyone safe. The locations are tremendous. Somehow Paul Dano, Viola Davis, Peter Sarsgaard and Gal Gadot are in here too, with Jordi Mollà as a charming villain.
There are some deep ethical questions being asked here — when is a spy a villain gone rogue or just a plain murderer? Consent is discussed, but sadly turned into a long running joke. But it’s here — spiking drinks, kidnapping, changes of wardrobe, even who decides what safety means for others. To begin with, the movie does try to ask the question of what ethical behaviour means in a Bondian world? (And then ditches it for more explosions).
Overall, it make a charming rom-bomb-com, the action sequences are excellent (with Roy trying to minimise June’s exposure to PTSD inducing traumas); the humour is good (such as when June is given truth serum by Antonio and carries on telling the truth during an escape scenario).
Weaker areas are the writing — June is trying to make it back to her sister’s wedding in three days (time stretches here and the wedding pretty much gets forgotten until spannered in again at the end). More could have been done with the contrast between ‘normal life’ and spy world. June’s apparent kidnapping and potential aiding and abetting a criminal is not made enough of and only lightly referred to, given that she’d been tracked by a police helicopter and plastered all over the media as a hostage.
Cruise is also a spy trying to protect a world changing battery(!) which seems to survive impacts, soakings and bullets, until malfunctioning just at the right moment to take out the villains. Intriguingly for such a disciplined and sensitive spy, Roy seems completely oblivious to June clumping about after him at night in a city she doesn’t know. Gal Gadot’s Naomi notices though — which is why she is Wonder Woman! Given that June has never been to Italy before either, how does she find her way back to the hotel in time? If she used GPS on her phone, she’d get located pretty quickly, as proved when she takes a phone call from her sister on a very small island. Though I guess there wouldn’t be a movie or any (cliched) plot development if everyone just did as they were told and stayed in their rooms! Paul Dano’s youthful genius Simon doesn’t get as much screen time as he deserves and almost goes somewhat Rain Man to the end, meeting a tragic ending. Peter Sarsgaard’s John Fitzgerald is mostly a grumpy administrator — we never get a sense of why he wants the battery so much, to malign Roy or to rule the world or anything. Or how he teamed up with the evil Spanish villains? Clearly he just needs to bring the movie to an end, having cleared his inbox and set up an out of office!
More too could have been made of Roy’s innate chivalry and knightly qualities, given that it’s in the title and he uses a knight to hide the battery in. Given the writing too, the performances sizzle and really are what make this work, bringing fun and appeal which the script and production in themselves don’t merit. It feels very Golden Age screwball comedy…with guns, lots of guns. But Cruise does get his Bond dinner jacket moment, which is terrific! (along with a motorbike chase which makes you think of Tomorrow Never Dies and his Casino Royal walking out of the sea moment).
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