Spy Game Review
by Dennis Schwartz (ozus AT sover DOT net)November 27th, 2001
SPY GAME (director: Tony Scott; screenwriters: Michael Frost Beckner/David Arata/based on a story by Beckner; cinematographer: Dan Mindel; editor: Christian Wagner; music: Harry Gregson-Williams; cast: Robert Redford (Nathan Muir), Brad Pitt (Tom Bishop), Catherine McCormack (Elizabeth Hadley), Stephen Dillane (Charles Harker), Larry Bryggman (Troy Folger), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Gladys); Runtime: 127; Universal; 2001)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A straight formula action espionage film using the following cliché moments to weave its story around: a veteran breaks in a rookie and the rookie shows his stuff and becomes just as ornery as his mentor; an agent is up against the clock to save a former colleague from being executed and does so in the last seconds; calculating bureaucrats against a sly independent-minded operative who is retiring today after 30 years, who gets sucked into this last case and who shows them he can still outsmart them; an agent telling another agent under him that he will not rescue him if he strays from the reservation, but in the end does.
It is scripted by Michael Frost Beckner and David Arata and directed by Tony Scott ("Top Gun"/ "Crimson Tide") as if it was a roller-coaster ride filled with plot twists, sharp editing, gimmicks galore, and explosions heard around the world's hot spots. The film moves at a very fast-clip, which is a strong asset for a lengthy film to have that has not much to offer by way of history and has little to say in its dialogue.
In the beginning of the film there's a prison break executed on an eastern China prison in Su Chou by Tom Bishop (Pitt) to free a woman prisoner, a British foreign-aid worker who was supported by a terrorist group, Elizabeth Hadley (McCormack). Bishop, the idealistic and romantic-minded operative, gets busted after the failed attempt. There's also a successful prison break at the end, covertly engineered by retiring C.I.A operative Nathan Muir (Redford), that frees Bishop and Hadley.
There's no character development, no brainwork needed to get into this film, and its story is distant not touching base with elementary human emotions or allowing it time to sink in with any relevant meaning; nevertheless, it's a highly entertaining adventure film thanks to its frenetic pace and its well-crafted look and a story that is kept tight, and that the craggy faced 70-year-old Redford anchors the film with his noble presence and very believable wily ways he exhibits and his co-star Pitt, in a minor role, supplies the muscle and sex appeal. It's strictly a familiar Hollywood blockbuster cloak-and-dagger pic, something Hollywood is capable of churning out as food for the masses. The only difference is after 9/11 when seeing an Arab terrorist onscreen explode bombs on a suicidal mission, it hits home more than this staple villain has in the past.
The long career of Nathan Muir, a maverick C. I. A. officer comes to end today with his retirement, but he receives a call from a friend of his, a C.I.A. operative in Hong Kong, about Bishop's failed prison break and his execution in 24 hours. The rogue operative Bishop did this job without the C. I. A.'s knowledge and they for political reasons are willing to deny knowing him and will allow him to be a sacrifice for the greater good of working out a trade agreement with China. Muir feels responsible for bringing Bishop into the C. I. A., as he used him in Vietnam as a sharpshooter to do an assassination. He later trained him in Germany, as Bishop became a reliable agent for him over the years.
The film is set from here on in the cold Langley, Va., C. I. A. building, and Nathan shows his stuff with his warm relationship with his trusted secretary Gladys (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and how he looks down at the stiff bureaucratic new breed of agents who form a task force to deal with the Pitt problem, as represented by his snobby, humorless, dark suited wearing immediate boss Harker (Dillane), who is his main nemesis. Nathan is from the old-school, he dresses in a tweed sports coat and has unruly longish hair and is more eccentric than those who now work there. Redford is so good in this shadowy role, seemingly so relaxed and convincing and is just about as smart a spy as there is in the place, that he pulls the film single-handledly out of its predictability by just being a throwback to the Redford from his younger film days in the 1970s. He takes this shell of a story and puts some life in it with flashes of wit as he tells in flashback his mentor/protégé relationship with Bishop and how they met Hadley and used her in Beirut in the mid-80's to commit a truck suicide bombing of a hotel to get a terrorist leader. That is where Bishop fell in love with her despite Muir's warnings about her being a danger to him, and Bishop opted to work with another C. I. A. operative from here on.
Muir's philosophy entails that there are no good versus bad guys in the spy game--it's just shades of difference. He states if it comes down between a choice between you and them--send flowers. But in the end, he uses his own retirement money to sentimentally bankroll Bishop's escape as he can't live with the C. I. A.'s inhuman decision to cut Bishop loose without a thought of what he did for the country. That act seems to go against what he believes, but this film is pure bull anyway...so contradictions in the story shouldn't stand in the way of how this film blows smoke across the screen for two or more hours and when it's all over the film can't be taken seriously even if some moral questions can be raised about what is actually the C. I. A. 's moral object in such a tumultuous world and if the end justifies the means--as one looks at the maiming and killing of innocent children as a result of its truck bombing. This film will not shed any light on such serious issues, but prefers to remain removed from the fray as only providers of entertainment.
The film covers at least four different time periods and hot situations ranging from Vietnam in 1975, Lebanon in the late 1970s, the Berlin checkpoint in the early 1980s of the Cold War, and modern China in 1991. It chewed off a lot of material, but all one could remember from such a film is Redford and the easy way he handled this role.
REVIEWED ON 12/1/2001 GRADE: C +
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
[email protected]
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
