Spy Game (2001)
Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline: In the end, only friendship matters!

"Heart Pounding!" -Joel Siegel, Good Morning America

Superstar Brad Pitt teams with Academy Award®-winner Robert Redford in this pulse-pounding action thrill ride. When a top-secret, unauthorized mission goes bad, CIA agent Tom Bishop (Pitt) is captured -- and sentenced to die. With just 24 hours to get him out alive, Bishop's boss Nathan Muir (Redford) must battle enemies abroad and the system inside the CIA to save his friend. Now, the clock is ticking and the race is on… as the deadliest game of all explodes into the spectacular, adrenaline-fueled thriller that ABC Radio says "Sizzles with suspense!"

Storyline: CIA operative Nathan Muir (Redford) is on the brink of retirement when he finds out that his protege Tom Bishop (Pitt) has been arrested in China for espionage. No stranger to the machinations of the CIA's top echelon, Muir hones all his skills and irreverent manner in order to find a way to free Bishop. As he embarks on his mission to free Bishop, Muir recalls how he recruited and trained the young rookie, at that time a sergeant in Vietnam, their turbulent times together as operatives and the woman who threatened their friendship. Written by ck

User Comment: snake77 Portland, OR • Spy Game is everything we're not supposed to expect from a major Hollywood movie: engrossing, intelligent, well written, acted and directed. But that's just what it is and more, this is definitely the best thing I've seen since Memento. Although Pitt is really good and Redford plays himself as well as he has in years, I think the most credit should go to Tony Scott. In the hands of a lesser director this could have been something more like Mission Impossible. But Scott stays right on target, keeping us interested, developing the characters, and keeping the pacing nearly perfect. Scott also shows us that he's stayed with the times: he employs the full array of modern camera tricks like fast motion, reverse zooms and funky lenses but in a way that actually makes the film better instead of being an annoying distraction. The dialogue feels natural, all the actors do good work, no one tries to steal the show or be the star. The story is interesting and almost never lapses into the kind of hyper violence or sappy sentimentality one has come to associate with modern studio pictures. You get a feeling this is pretty close to how the CIA really operates, a place with fantastic technology at its disposal but who's ultimate effectiveness is determined by the fallible people who run the missions and take the chances. I really enjoyed this film, I hope it's a sign of things to come and not a rarity.

Summary: High quality Hollywood thriller

--- JOYA ---


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