Film: 'Allied'

Conscious that in some circles this is being rated as a 'turkey', curiosity got the better of me. I was also aware of rumours rife, denied by Ms Cotillard (but she would deny it wouldn't she?) that this film played some part in the break up of the 'Brangelina' brand. 
I'd heard too that there were one or two clunky references to the Bogart film of 'Casablanca'. Added to which there's the rarity of Brad Pitt speaking French on several occasions during the film's course, and it's carrying quite a sum of qualities to make it intriguing - or might it turn out to be just plain daft?

Pitt plays a Canadian air force intelligence officer  
(a Quebecois, hence his 'proficiency' in the language) parachuted into Morocco in 1942. That country was French then but, as France had already fallen, it was now subject to Nazi occupation. As arranged, he meets up with underground resistance fighter Marion Cotillard where, for appearances sake, he's passed off as her Parisian husband. Then, before they've hardly had time to drop their underwear they've fallen in genuine love. (Sex in a car, and in a sandstorm, would you believe - with, despite the limited confines of that space, a camera circling their love-making - and all to swooning strings, just so we don't labour under a misapprehension that this isn't serious.) 
Having taken part together in an assassination at the French embassy in Casablanca in the middle of a Nazi social party (where a string quartet softly plays in the background 'Deutschland Uber Alles', for crying out loud!), the two of them flee to London, where they get married, she becoming dutiful housewife while he carries on his war contacts, now with the British, where everyone seems to talk in upper class, lah-di-dah accents. Soon a baby arrives. Immediately after the birth a nurse hands the naked newly-born to the mother with the helpfully informative remark "It's a girl!"

So that's the first hour of this two-hour film - and now it gets interesting. Pitt is summoned to be told that there's good reason to believe that his wife is.......a Nazi spy. (Yes!) His disbelief is understandable. Nevertheless, he is instructed to keep a strict eye on her. The next hour is quite successful in keeping us guessing - "Is she or not?"

I have to say that, despite some jaw-droppers, I was never bored throughout this film, not even in the long setting-up of the first half, though part of that was wondering what I could criticise next. The script was often flat.

Director Robert Zemeckis produces a work-a-day romantic thriller. I've seen worse, though many more that are better. This one just doesn't quite manage to get over the 'okay' line................4.