Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Knight and Day (2010) - Diaz and Cruise invigorate Mangold's action romance

8/11/2016

Knight and Day (2010) - Diaz and Cruise invigorate Mangold's action romance

♥♥♥

Stars Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise in what looks like a very uncomfortable shooting position on a poster for James Mangold's Knight and Day

A sexy mechanic babe falls for a resourceful charmer on board an airplane, but he turns out to be a rogue CIA agent, who wants to protect a newly created super battery, - and its inventor, - from some shady villains!

Tom Cruise (Jack Reacher (2012)) plays a classic Cruise hero here, who can simply do just about anything, and Cameron Diaz (The Invisible Circus (2001)) is charming and sympathetic in the other lead. Knight and Day lives on their charisma and good chemistry, coupled here for their second time, (the first one being in Vanilla Sky (2001)). Great New Yorker director James Mangold (Cop Land (1997)) creates a slick and neatly photographed (by Phedon Papamichael (The Descendants (2011))) film that holds no surprises and doesn't transcend being a pretty pedestrian time-passer. It feels like a vanity project and it is truly a trifle, looked at from any angle, but it is still a well-driving vehicle with two lovely stars. - And one spectacular car and motorbike chase through the bull run in Sevilla, Spain!
Knight and Day jumps from country to country seemingly only motivated by the fact that it adds spice to the production. The much better version of the film it tries to be would be something like True Lies (1994). The script reportedly went through a staggering 12 writers' machines, but it is Patrick O'Neill (Sun Gods (2002), TV movie) who is credited for it.

Related review:

James Mangold: Cop Land (1997) - Stallone faces corruption and turns in some good acting in fine crime drama

Watch an official trailer for the film here

Cost: 125 mil. $
Box office: 261.9 mil. $
= Flop
[Knight and Day premiered June 16 (Sevilla) and runs 110 minutes. Many stars were in talks to star in the film before Cruise and Diaz were cast. Cruise took a pay cut, only receiving 11 mil. $ for his performance and no "first dollar gross", meaning he might not have made more on it than the 11 mil. Diaz's paycheck is undisclosed. Filming took place in Massachusetts, Jamaica, Illinois, New York, California, Spain (Sevilla and Cadiz) and Austria (Salzburg) from September - December 2009. The release attracted little interest: It opened #3 to a 20.1 mil. $, behind hold-over hit Toy Story 3 and the new comedy release Grown Ups, in North America, where it grossed 76.4 mil. $ (29.2 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 28.2 mil. $ (10.8 %) and France with 14.3 mil. $ (5.5 %). The film is said to be Cruise's lowest attended action movie opening since Legend (1986). It received many bad reviews, but Roger Ebert gave it 3/4 stars, a notch better than the review here. Knight and Day is rotten at 52 % with a 5.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Knight and Day?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

8/11/2016

Knight and Day (2010) - Diaz and Cruise invigorate Mangold's action romance

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