Brad Pitt is reunited as a co-star with his A River Runs Through It (1992) director Robert Redford for this espionage thriller from Tony Scott. On the verge of retirement from the Central Intelligence Agency, veteran spy Nathan Muir (Redford) learns that his one-time protégé Tom Bishop (Pitt) has gone rogue and been taken prisoner after attempting to smuggle a prisoner out of China. Although Muir and Bishop had once been close friends, sharing adventures from Vietnam to Berlin, bad blood and
resentment developed between them, and the two men haven't seen each other in years. As his memories of their friendship come flooding back, Muir sets about arranging the rescue of his old friend from a Communist jail. Spy Game (2001) co-stars Catherine McCormack as a human rights activist and Bishop's love interest. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
Happily, beneath the film's nostalgic veneer and tooth-rattling visual and aural effects lies a mature ambiguity that's unusual for a holiday blockbuster.
A veteran CIA agent discovers that his protege is being sold out by the agency so he uses his last 24 hours on the job to try and rescue him from execution by the Chinese government. Very much an old school spy thriller, Spy Game's overly generic script means that it's pretty much entirely reliant on the partnership of
Redford and Pitt to maintain your interest. Unfortunately they spend very little time on screen together as Redford spends virtually the entire film sat in a meeting shuffling paperwork while telling the largely irrelevant back story of how he met Brad who seems to be little more than a sharp shooting taxi driver. The result is a combination of a humdrum conspiracy thriller and Jackanory which comes across as the cinematic equivalent of an airport paperback. Inoffensive but dull.
April 29, 2007
xGary Xx
Super Reviewer
Robert Redford - like a few other actors - does so few films nowadays that it's a treat to watch him act. While this film isn't particularly memorable, it's still worth a watch. Redford plays a retiring CIA agent who has just 24 hours to save his former protege (played by Brad Pitt) before he's executed for a failed
espionage rescue mission in a Chinese prison. Played in mostly flashbacks as the kid comes up through Vietnam and the ranks of the CIA with Redford, the film has its share of excitement and drama, but the acting just seems rather phoned in at times. Directed by Tony Scott, who seems to enjoy being at the helm of these kinds of things.
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