Leofwine_draca Here's an atypical but enthralling thriller from sure-hand director Tony Scott which plays out most of its tale in various flashbacks, but is held together through an excellent leading turn from Robert Redford. Redford is an ageing CIA agent and on his last day of work before retirement (gee, where have we heard that one before?) he learns that his young protégé has been captured for spying in a Chinese prison and is due to be executed the following morning. Much of the film consists of him relating previous experiences and adventures to his superiors as the clock ticks down towards his partner's imminent death. Whilst this might not sound to be very interesting viewing, the flashbacks are invariably exciting and involve lots of secrecy, death, and open warfare in some cases (an excellent interlude in Beirut for example), elements all woven together well.The present scenes of Redford using his own contacts and methods to help his captured chum are excellently portrayed and even if the film comes a little loose towards the ending, it still engages the senses through the quality of the acting. Here's a film with some fleshed-out characters brought to vivid life through the strong actors playing them. Redford and Pitt are excellent in their two very different roles, and we also get strong support from Catherine McCormack as Pitt's love interest and Stephen Dillane, excellently snide as an enemy of Redford's at the intelligence agency. Flashily directed by Scott and never lulling for a moment, this is an exciting and intelligent movie with plenty of incident and dynamism to recommend it.

gavin6942 Retiring CIA agent Nathan Muir (Robert Redford) recalls his training of Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) while working against agency politics to free him from his Chinese captors.This is the perfect role for Robert Redford. After "Day of the Condor" and before "Captain America", this is a great early-2000s spy thriller and Redford has distinguished himself in those roles. This seems like it would pair well with "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy". They are both spies looking back on their career trying to figure things out. Different, yet similar.Pitt is also a great choice because he is in many ways a younger Redford in his personality and presence. Will that continue as Pitt ages? Perhaps. If anything, he has become a bigger player than even Redford managed to be.

simondclinch-1 Frankly, the 7.0 average rating is a gross annoyance, because 7.1 is the minimum for IMDb to classify it as "liked". So I only just got around to seeing it and only because I couldn't find anything I hadn't seen in the genre with a higher rating.Fact is that this is one of the best spy films I have seen. It keeps your attention from the get-go. Well worth seeing.Also it has a rich mix of intrigue, action, politics, spy-technicality, you name it!Could it be that the genre as a whole is just too complicated for the average reviewer? Possibly looking at some of the other ratings for top spy films!

fung0 Spy Game is almost a good movie. Unfortunately, it fails to pay off on any of its worthwhile ambitions.At first, it seems like some sort of inside look at the 'spy game.' Brad Pitt's character is going to learn something about life and morality, as in a LeCarre thriller. Pitt does eventually make a big realization, but it's abrupt, with very little psychological lead-up. And the subsequent evolution of the story is barely sketched in. Early on, Pitt looks like one type of character. Later, we're told he's another type. The only thing missing is the good stuff in between.Meanwhile, as we see what Redford's character is up to, we're tempted to think this may be some sort of cat-and-mouse intellectual exercise, reminiscent of the brilliant Hopscotch. But Redford's 'cleverness' just isn't all that clever, or even interesting. He reads the back of a memo. He uses the phone in a neighbouring office. He steals a key card. Big deal. Not only are they banal, most of these events (such as his final exit from the film) are completely implausible. Unless you put your brain on 'Park,' you're constantly asking yourself "But wouldn't they see that?" "Couldn't the world's biggest spy organization just send some people to stop him?" "Aren't there procedures that anticipate this sort of simple trick?"And again, as with Pitt, we are left totally in the dark as far as Redford's ultimate change of character. Why does he act against all the weighty advice he gives Pitt early on in his training? We see that he's undergone some sort of transformation, but never given any insight into it. One minute, Redford is an unchanging brick of a character, a bastion of the amoral CIA philosophy. The next, he's a malicious prankster with an over-riding personal morality. This key transformation happens off-screen (like Pitt's), with no explanation. That's not clever, it's just annoying. If I wanted to write my own movie, I wouldn't be watching this one.Along the way, there are endless plot holes. The biggest of all being the basic framework of the story. Why is a committee of CIA top brass sitting around for two days, listening to Redford's reminiscences? Someone says it's to 'get something' on Pitt's character. That's not remotely plausible. We actually see a manufactured press item on the news, at one point, showing how easily the whole problem can be addressed, without listening to hours of Redford's banter, and without giving Redford hours to take action, as he's left to wander unsupervised through CIA headquarters.Spy Game isn't unpleasant to watch. It's nicely produced, with some genuinely interesting episodes. Unfortunately, those episodes fail to connect into a coherent whole. The Redford and Pitt characters are intriguing, but we never learn what makes them tick. They're ciphers at the end just as they were at the beginning.Watching Spy Game is like reading the outline of a movie. A good movie, to be sure. Maybe someone will make it someday.