Certificate 15
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
☆☆☆

BRAD Pitt is going through a concerted period of Second World War dramas – he’s brought us Inglourious Basterds and Fury in recent years, and now completes his troika with Allied.

But if you are expecting the hard-hitting impact of the previous two – gory, horrible, brilliant, moving, exciting – then you’ll be disappointed. Allied is a nursery rhyme of a tale compared to the others’ hefty story-telling, and has fundamental flaws that mean you simply can’t take it seriously.

And yet – due to strangely over-the-top production – it feels like a fantasy, and for that reason alone works as well as can be expected.

Pitt is Max Vatan, a suave Canadian RAF officer, seconded to do sterling behind-the-lines spy work. We meet him as he is parachuted into French Morocco with a mission to meet a fellow agent, the lovely Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard). They do the rounds of Casablanca, trying to channel their inner Bogies and Bergmans (a big ask, obviously) as they seek to take out the German ambassador.

They fall in love – who wouldn’t, you may ask, as both are unbelievably gorgeous and have the terrors of wartime to put out of their minds – and then make it back home to Blighty, where they shack up in a house in Willow Road, Hampstead.

But all is not well in the new love-nest: is Beausejour really who she says she is? Can darling Max trust her? And does love conquer all?

At times this is nothing short of a hilarious pastiche, creating a London – and a Hampstead in particular – for American audiences.

It will lead to some chuckles, which detracts from what is an incredible story based on true, heart-breaking events.

But the sheer gloss of the production, and occasionally ridiculous plot twists, make this a mildly enjoyable film.