• Rating:
• Genre: Thriller
• Movie Type: Paranoid Thriller, Political Thriller
• Themes: Race Against Time, Traitorous Spies/Double Agents, Mentors
• Director: Tony Scott
• Main Cast: Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack, Stephen Dillane, Larry Bryggman
• Release Year: 2001
• Country: US
• Run Time: 127 minutes
• MPAA Rating: R

Plot

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 in Beijing 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 agrees to take the most dangerous mission of his career -- 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, All Movie Guide

Review

Ignoring its somewhat dubious politics, Tony Scott's espionage thriller remains a taut and engrossing -- if glossily shallow -- take on international intrigue, shoved along at a steady clip by brisk editing and an insistent score. This is the kind of material a director like Alan J. Pakula would have thrived on in the '70s; Michael Frost Beckner and David Arata's script is rife with double- and triple-crosses, sex, assassinations, elaborate flashbacks, daring rescues, and beat-the-clock political maneuvering. In the hands of Pakula or a similarly accomplished director, Spy Game would have been truly epic instead of endlessly watchable, but, as it is, the movie offers more than enough coherent drama for audiences to chew over. Though Scott's excessive stylistic flourishes are mostly distracting, he's to be commended for delineating a head-spinning amount of information in a relatively compact, 127-minute running time. Granted, some characters fall by the wayside -- the luminous Charlotte Rampling has a nothing part -- and some plot details remain unclear, but through it all, Robert Redford anchors the film with a relaxed cool he hasn't exhibited in years. It's a part tailor-made for him, and his mere presence lends the film a gravity it wouldn't have had otherwise. Scott seems mostly uninterested in his characters' emotional transformations, but the veteran leading man more than makes up for it in his repartee with a similarly well-cast Brad Pitt. So while it's tantalizing to think of the movie Spy Game could have been, the one that's onscreen proves to be more than enough. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Robert Redford - Nathan Muir
• Brad Pitt - Tom Bishop
• Catherine McCormack
• Stephen Dillane - Charles Harker
• Larry Bryggman - Troy Folger

Michael Paul Chan - Vincent Vy Ngo; Marianne Jean-Baptiste - Gladys Jennip; Ken Leung - Li; David Hemmings - Harry Duncan; Matthew Marsh - Dr. Byars; Todd Boyce - Robert Aiken; Amidou - The Sheik's Doctor; Charlotte Rampling - Anne Cathcart

Credit

Marc Abraham - Producer; Armyan Bernstein - Executive Producer; Louise Frogley - Costume Designer; Kevin Phipps - Supervising Art Director; Nina Ruscio - Production Designer; Tony Scott - Director; Chris Seagers - Production Designer; Iain Smith - Executive Producer; Norris Spencer - Production Designer; Doug Wick - Producer; James W. Skotchdopole - Executive Producer; Simon Kaye - Sound/Sound Designer; Bonnie Timmerman - Casting; John Wildermuth - First Assistant Director; Michael Frost Beckner - Screen Story; Michael Frost Beckner - Screenwriter; Harry Gregson-Williams - Composer (Music Score); Thomas A. Bliss - Executive Producer; Garry Freeman - Art Director; G. Marq Roswell - Musical Direction/Supervision; Christian Wagner - Editor; Dan Mindel - Cinematographer; David Arata - Screenwriter; Andrew Nicholson - Art Director; Jille Azis - Set Designer; Steve Dent - Stunts Coordinator; Stephen Dobric - Art Director; John Hill - Art Director

Similar Movies

The Ipcress File; Marathon Man; No Way Out; The Odessa File; Patriot Games; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; Three Days of the Condor; Love is Forever; Clear and Present Danger; The Devil's Own; Enemy of the State; The Tailor of Panama; The Sum of All Fears; The Recruit; Spartan; The Bourne Supremacy; Syriana; Company Business; Miami Vice; Breach

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