Director Robert Zemeckis gives us some breathtaking moments in "Allied" from 2015. The film stars Brad Pitt and Marian Cotillard as Max and Marianne, two spies who meet on a joint assignment in France and fall in love. Mission accomplished, Max proposes. She is allowed to come to England and marry him, and they have a beautiful daughter.

One day Max's bosses call him in and say that they believe Marianne took the name of an executed resistance worker and is, in fact, a German spy. They order him to write down a fake message he will be given by phone, and if it shows up in transmissions the following Monday, they will know the truth. Then he must execute her. Max, however, has no intention of waiting until Monday to find out.

By no means is this a perfect film and yes, some parts are easy to guess. When you've seen 5000 films or more, it's not hard to know what's going to happen after certain scenes. The script could have been a little more interesting. I certainly didn't find it sentimental and goopy as someone described it. And what the heck is wrong with sentiment anyway? It was not, to me, overdone.

If I am being honest, I think the problem lay with the casting of Brad Pitt. He's a real honest-to-God movie star as they had in the old Hollywood, and I love him. But this is a role that should have been played by someone like Jason Isaacs or Tom Hardy or Tom Hiddleston. Pitt does not bring to the character the layers and depth which would have made this a richer film. He has the stoicism but little else. Also I found his face distracting - he's had injections in the bottom part of his face and it looks different.

Cotillard, on the other hand, gives a brilliant performance of an expert spy who falls in love with her temporary partner, sending her life into another trajectory.

Someone pointed out some modernizations that were off-putting. One was Max's sister as an out lesbian - highly doubtful in those days in England. The one I caught was the phrase "take it outside." It was like the Amelia Earhart movie with Diane Keaton where she says "cut the crap." Are these screenwriters kidding? A little more care needs to be taken when dealing with period pieces.

The special effects were fantastic and brought home the idea of how close in proximity the war was to the British people. The scene with the ambassador was excellent; but my favorite scene was the one in the desert with the car. Beautiful.

I recommend it. I thought it was well done and well acted, exciting in parts, and also poignant. To young people I say - don't be hardened to sentimentality at your age.

A Franco/Canadian secret mission is an unusual twist for a WWII story. This and the setting of the first part of "Allied" reminded me of "The English Patient". Canadian Max (Pitt) is sent to Casablanca for a dangerous mission. Marianne (Cotillard) is the French agent already in place to help him.

Out of the desert and in London, "Allied" moves into a different territory, albeit still with plenty of style. Max and Marianne's wartime romance in exotic settings turns into a real family, but doubts arise about Marianne's identity.

London during the war as the main setting for two thirds of the movie looked very realistic. I did not mind what could be the historical inaccuracy of the Blitz, because the bombing added a layer of drama to the story.

I particularly liked the scene during the party, with Sing, Sing Sing playing in the background. It is a slightly menacing tune and it complemented perfectly the atmosphere of tension, suspicion and slight desperation.

Even if I have never been a Brad Pitt fan, he did a good job playing quiet Max, a man of a few words who sees his new world disintegrating. One can easily imagine him as a long-term bachelor falling for the beautiful, brave French partisan. Cotillard was also convincing as the ambiguous "femme fatale". Contrary to what some reviewers wrote, plenty of chemistry between the two, but also tenderness.

If you like movies with a solid plot, linear storytelling, believable characters, difficult choices, great costumes and soundtrack, then you should like this.

P.S. couple of remarks: Pitt's French was not the best and no way he could have passed for Parisian, but that did not bother me too much. The final scene is a couple of minutes too long, but again, not a major problem. However, what a relief to follow a good plot without the zig- zagging in time, overused but often useless editing style.

What I appreciated most about ALLIED is that it feels very much like the character-focused thrillers of postwar Britain, in which any number of leading men of the time found themselves investigating conspiracies and the like and struggling to separate good from bad. This time around it's the world of spying in occupied France, as Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard play a married couple not dissimilar to those found in Pitt's earlier movie, MR. & MRS. SMITH. Halfway through, the action shifts to London and the story flags a little, only to pick up for a strong climax. It's not an action packed movie, although there are a handful of good set-pieces, but what sells this is both Pitt and Cotillard, the former strong-jawed and inherently decent, the latter full of spike and mystery.