Right up front: Allied is a pretty damn good movie. You know what would\u2019ve made it even better? If they didn\u2019t give away the big second-half spoiler in the trailer. But give it away they did, which as far as I\u2019m concerned means its fair game to discuss here. Consider yourself warned.<\/span><\/p>\n Ever since Brad Pitt first showed up on the scene, one of the most frequently cited aspects of his appeal was that he had the appearance and onscreen persona of a classically handsome Hollywood leading man \u2013 the kind of iconic masculine visage Western popular culture seemed to have stopped manufacturing right around the time it somehow became acceptable for grown adult men to wear sandals year-round in locations that aren\u2019t the beach. Yet despite this, the former Mr. Jolie hasn\u2019t really done a lot of direct homage to Golden Age Hollywood. So now here he is in Allied, a classy old-school epic wartime romance that outside of a handful of details deliberately feels like a film that might\u2019ve been right at home in pre-1970s studio era.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s a small story of big emotions unfolding with epic stakes in the background (often literally and realized through handsome if not 100% convincing CGI) that\u2019s divided neatly in two halves \u2013 which also feels kind of old school, even if there isn\u2019t the expected intermission break. In the first half, Pitt is a dashing Canadian spy in World War II who parachutes into Nazi-occupied Morocco to team up with Marion Cotillard as a brave French resistance fighter on a joint mission to assassinate the German ambassador. Their infiltration cover-story requires them to impersonate a married couple, and in the process of building their characters (who\u2019d have guessed!?), they fall in love for real. Oh, and they also kill the Nazi guy. That\u2019s important, too.<\/span><\/p>\n