We all know how a magic act works – dazzle the audience with lights and pretty girls while the magician pulls off the most unlikely of actions and makes them, ergo, believable. I mean it MUST have happened the way he presented them because you saw it with your own eyes, right?
Well, Allied is the same way. The cinematography is beautiful (either that or the CGI technology has gotten a bit TOO good. Though they DID film on location in Fuerteventura, which actually does have dunes.) Directed by Robert “Back to the Future” Zemeckis the story is cogent, character driven and artfully told (no Deloreans though folks). The acting is very good. I am not a Brad Pitt fan at all (never even seen Fight Club – *gasp*) but he is well suited to the role of Max, the Allied spy who goes to Casablanca to meet with a woman he has never met but must pretend is his wife, Marianne played by Marion Cotillard.
Gotta digress here – Cotillard is wonderful in every role I’ve seen her in: from the beleaguered singing wife, 
Luisa, in Nine to the lunatic surprise bad guy, 
Miranda, in The Dark Knight Rises to 
Mal in Inception. She’s done a LOT of French films too – makes sense because she is — well, French. I must admit she has never been able in anything I’ve seen to shake that very heavy French accent, but who cares? She could be holding herself out as an IRA member with that heavy French accent and her acting is so good I’d believe it…..which is actually part of the problem.
We are so busy watching the acting and the cinematography and enjoying the artfully constructed story that we do not realize the story is….well…..stupid.
During the course of the movie, and I will TRY to avoid too many spoilers, we are asked to believe:
1. A brilliant accomplished spy could be manipulated into a corner as easily as your average unassuming citizen – James Bond, Bourne, or heck even John McClaine from Die Hard would have found an alternative.
2. You can escape Vichy France during World War II after an assassination by just turning a corner noting that you were not followed – yeah, well tell that to Victor Lazlo.
3. Any relevant current intel can be obtained from either an alcoholic one armed derelict in a local prison or from a long-term care wounded inmate of a hospital.
4. That a sexual lifestyle appropriate to the musical Caberet would be casually and openly accepted by the extremely straightlaced community of 1940’s London.
5. That a high ranking spy would entrust extremely classified information to his easily compromisable sibling smack dab in the middle of a time sensitive investigation JUST because he is upset.
6. That an accomplished and high ranking spy would host a wild raunchy guests-literally-having-sex-in-the-broom-closet party in his home where he admits that he does not even know who the identity of half of the people there, when sensitive information is IN THE HOUSE along with weapons much less, again, in the middle of a classified internal affairs investigation, or that his ranking officer would approve much less attend such party. THIS one was so dumb that I thought there MUST be a follow up red herring coming, but no.
And the BIGGEST sword which we’re supposed to swallow is that upon discovering a spy in one’s midst one is REQUIRED under pain of DEATH to dispatch them IMMEDIATELY. Do not pass go, do not collect $50 and certainly do not bother to INTERROGATE them or turn them over to the proper authorities or your intelligence superiors for questioning or EVEN POSSIBLY turning them into a double agent!! No, that would make far too much sense.
So while an intriguing movie to watch it, much like getting a peek under the magician’s table cloth, you will be disappointed by reality if you examine it too closely. So watch for fun, watch for the actors, but do not watch it for any logical plot.
NOTES OF CAUTION: There are some raw words, particularly in one meal scene with our two protagonists. While it was NOT anachronistic as the word was in common usage, it seemed gratuitous. Additionally, there are two VERY steamy sex scenes 
and a few others not quite so detailed, but nonetheless certainly not appropriate for younger teens much less children. And a good deal of violence, but, after all, it was World War II.