Brad Pitt received mixed reviews, and many were critical of Pitt's performance. According to Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle", Pitt was unable to "make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity." Roger Ebert stated "Pitt is a fine actor, but this performance is a miscalculation." In 1999, Pitt portrayed Tyler Durden in "Fight Club", a film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, directed by David Fincher. Pitt prepared for the part with lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling. To look the part, Pitt consented to the removal of pieces of his
Brad Pitt film production company he had founded two years earlier with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, CEO of Paramount Pictures. "Ocean's Twelve" earned $362 million worldwide, and Pitt and Clooney's dynamic was described by CNN's Paul Clinton as "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford." In 2005, Pitt starred in the Doug Liman-directed action comedy "Mr. & Mrs. Smith", in which a bored married couple discover that each is an assassin sent to kill the other. The feature received reasonable reviews but was generally lauded for the chemistry between Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who played his character's wife