I’m kind of a sucker for historical dramas. Especially romances. So when I saw the trailer for Allied, which hinted at both a romance and a thriller aspect that would keep Luke interested, I added the movie to mental Redbox list.

The concept is strong: Brad Pitt, a WWII spy, meets beautiful female WWII spy, they fall in love and get married, have a baby, and THEN he learns she might be a double agent (no spoilers there, the trailer tells us that much).

It delivered…

Coming in at just over two hours, the movie kept me enthralled the entire time. The suspense was strong, romance was good, and I just had to know how they were going to find their happily ever after in the middle of such a mess.

But…

It’s rated R for violence and “some sexuality.”

There was some language in there too, but nothing that felt excessive.

The violence was kind of an issue. But these people are spies, so obviously they kill people. Doesn’t quite make it okay, but it was war. Still, some of the killing felt very cold-blood and left us wondering, can that be justified? On face value, totally not. But it made me kind of want to theology-geek out and look up the implications of moral theology in espionage.

The sexuality was a little troublesome as well. Their first encounter is pre-marital, and kind of long-anticipated – I really do hate how in our society, a couple finally getting together equals the couple sleeping together. So in essence, as we watch two characters falling for each other and become hopeful of them getting together, it ends up equaling us hoping for them to sleep together (see Chuck for another discussion of this). We want to see these guys get together, but then they “get together” in an act of fornication, and bam, viewer emotions manipulated into rejoicing over sin, to some extent. But what’s new. I’ve come to expect this phenomenon as pretty typical.

The other aspect of the sexuality was the scenes themselves: two scenes, graphic/long enough that we felt the need to skip them, but I can’t vouch for how very graphic they actually were, because we played it safe for our sensitive little consciences. But the scenes weren’t that hard to skip past.

The most troubling part: SPOILER

If you do want to watch the movie, stop after this sentence: The ending is pretty morally problematic. There, now I haven’t ruined anything if you stop here, but know you’re in for a moral letdown at the end.

Because it ends with her suicide. To save her husband. Ick.

I was hoping, foolishly, as the end neared, that they’d make it out alive, that no one would catch them, etc. etc., spoiler spoiler. But instead, the only way that one of them can get out alive, to parent their poor baby daughter, is if the woman dies. And so she kills herself. And it’s kind of supposed to be heroic. And we’re Catholics, so it can’t be. Because it’s an evil. And it’s painted as the only way, the only answer to a terrible, hard situation. So it’s problematic.

I’ve got to say, it pissed me off.

I literally finished the movie saying, “Oh man! Come on. Are you serious?” Etc.

So it had it’s moments, but over all it felt like $1.50 wasted. Boo.