Brad Pitt Rocks as a Former Navy SEAL for Hire in 'The Lost City'

There are more than a few retired spec-ops guys out there who've made themselves over as lethal killing machines who are also in tune with the universe. Mix some martial arts with a bit of yoga or Pilates, throw in some Eastern philosophy, long hair and a few tattoos, and you've got a mystic package that'll wow the folks back home.

In "The Lost City," Brad Pitt plays Jack Trainer, a hilarious sendup of that spec-ops guy. He's a remarkably handsome killing machine and performs his role with a wicked glint in his eye. It's not a lead role, but it's one of his funniest performances.

The movie stars Sandra Bullock as Loretta Sage, a romance novelist who hates her own work and has a rocky relationship with her cover model, Alan Caprison, played by Channing Tatum. Tatum is having a real career resurgence with "Dog" and this movie and understands how to play a guy who everyone assumes is dumb because he's so good-looking. Of course, Loretta's fans love Alan's cover-only portrayals of her hero, Dash McMahon, maybe even more than the books themselves.

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Loretta was a scholar before she was an author and includes a bit of her ancient language research as a plot point in her latest novel. Media heir Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe) claims his first name is gender-neutral and is out to prove himself after dad gave leadership of the family business to his younger brother, Leslie. Think "Succession," but sillier.

Fairfax wants to find a lost treasure and kidnaps Loretta to translate a document that he believes will reveal the exact location. Alan/Dash, who's been secretly crushing on Loretta for years, has the idea of hiring Trainer. Of course, Alan knows Jack because the SEAL veteran was his instructor at a meditation retreat.

The guys track Loretta to a remote island and stage a daring rescue.

What comes next is a series of surprises. You won't find out what really happened unless you stay for the mid-credits scene after the movie.

Pitt's always had a talent for straddling the line between action and comedy. He won his acting Oscar for doing exactly that when he played a World War II vet in Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood" and got away with an absolutely over-the-top portrayal of Lt. Aldo Raine in Tarantino's WWII epic, "Inglourious Basterds."

Jack Trainer is yet another addition to his military rogues' gallery. Pitt's performance has all the eerie self-confidence and mystical warrior aura that you'd want from a New Age veteran. He's poking fun but still managing to play it just straight enough to pull off the badass moves required here.

Hollywood has loved to make films about hunts for lost ancient treasure for almost as long as there's been a movie business. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Romancing the Stone" were takeoffs on much older movies, and "The Lost City" isn't trying to reinvent the genre. It colors inside the lines and depends on chemistry between Bullock, Tatum, Pitt, Radcliffe and Da'Vine Joy Randolph (very funny as Loretta's publisher) to pull off the movie.

Pitt takes a part that could've been written for Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude van Damme back in the day and injects it with some humor and self-awareness that those two, no matter how awesome they are, could have never managed themselves.

"The Lost City" is exactly the kind of entertaining night out that Hollywood has mostly forgotten how to deliver. It's not too demanding, everyone's charming and the audience gets to go home at the end without worrying about how what they've just seen fits into the larger puzzle of some cinematic universe. That's a win.

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