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Knight and Day

Summer CampBy John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"

The summer of 2010 just registered a thriller worth seeing, a James Bond/Mission Impossible incoherent concoction starring the durable Tom Cruise as FBI agent Roy Miller and Cameron Diaz as June Havens, whose life just got more complicated than arguing with her firefighter about an engagement ring. The couple is on the run, he as an alleged rogue agent and she caught in his vortex by happenstance.

It's a campy thriller filled with improbable action but snappy dialogue, especially from Roy. The comic-caper insouciance, memorably displayed by Cary Grant in North by Northwest and Charade, is done well enough by Cruise that I am reminded not of Grant but of Cruise's acting chops, from Born on the Fourth of July through Vanilla Sky, in which he starred with Diaz.

I reminisce a bit more: When the plane in Knight and Day lands in a cornfield, writer Patrick O'Neill and director Mangold are not being shy about the NNW reference. Mangold may not be Hitchcock, but his movies such as 3:10 to Yuma are well made, even memorable.

I am not usually rhapsodic about action movies, so let me at least hum an appreciative tune in honor of an amusing action pic that also satisfies my hunger for smart, almost screwball dialogue.

Summer cinema just warmed up.

John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com