SPY GAME

by
Lovell
Mahan-Moutaw

"Do you remember when we used to know the good guys from the bad?"

Or something like that.

That's a quote from Robert Redford's character in Spy Game. It's also, in different incarnations, a quote from about seventeen other spy or military movies in the last decade or so. So it goes.

Redford plays Nathan Muir, a CIA agent. He is concerned because his protégé is in a Chinese prison, arrested for espionage, and that's not a good place to be. Nathan recruited this protégé, Tom Bishop (played by Brad Pitt) and thus feels responsible for him. Tom was an army sharpshooter who learned to shoot in the Boy Scouts (huh?). I'm not entirely certain and maybe a little uncomfortable with the idea that someone can be tagged for the CIA just because they can shoot people, but this is a movie. The phrase "this is a movie" is something I had to tell myself frequently while watching this movie.

Anyway, Nathan trains Tom, Tom is really good at what he does, and after his training, Tom and Nathan work together on a variety of "ops." It is, not surprisingly, Nathan's last day at the CIA. He is retiring but receives word that Tom is in trouble. He drives his Porsche like a demon through the streets of DC, goes to the office, and manipulates himself into the Tom Bishop War Room and tells his and Tom's story. There are a number of flashbacks and Nathan surreptitiously looks at a variety of things around the room to ascertain more of the situation, tricks the war room inhabitants on several occasions into giving more information than they intend, says a variety of cool macho things like, "We needed to get twice the sex out of half the foreplay," and manages to pull the wool over the eyes of the brightest minds in the CIA.

In the meantime, Tom is getting the shit kicked out of him in China. Another not-so-big surprise is that Tom and Nathan are on the outs and have been for several years. Tom, it would seem, is a bit of an idealist. He does what he does for the greater good, but doesn't like it much. He likes and admires Nathan,.but Nathan is old school and knows how to play the "game." Tom doesn't think it's game; he figures these are lives he's dealing with and doesn't like the idea of playing with them.

Enter the woman who screws everything up (Catherine McCormack). But I won't get into her too much because, well, she's boring and even more stereotypical than the male leads. At least Pitt gets to make ugly 70s/80s clothing look good, and Redford gets to read things in glass tables. She runs around in hippie clothing and has a lot of scenes with bloody children in Beirut.

I know all of this all sounds like I didn't like this movie. But in fact I enjoyed the hell out of it. To do so, however, there need to be some ground rules:

1) I don't know how the CIA works, and maybe writer Michael Frost Beckner knows better. I hope he does. But I would suggest you check your suspension of belief at the door. If the idea of Robert Redford being wrinkled and aged but looking exactly the same from 1975 thorugh 1991 is going to take you out of the movie, then you might not want to go. If the idea of Brad Pitt being in Vietnam at all, much less wearing camoflauge makeup, much less not aging a day from 1975 to 1991, is hard for you to take, I would also not go to the movie.

2) If you don't like stereotypical characters, like the clueless CIA chief or the ambitious asshole who thinks he knows everything, then don't go.

3) If you have serious problems with director Tony Scott's not-quite-so clever and certainly-not-original camera manipulations and frankly idiotic black and white shots and time references, then maybe you shouldn't see this.

4) If you think Brad Pitt has a sexy rating that is off the scales, then by all means go see it.

5) If you want to watch Brad Pitt and Robert Redford slumming in order to draw some box office so they can continue decent work in things like, say Fight Club or A River Runs Through It, then definitely support this movie.

6) If you have any interest in what things might have been like in East Germany or Beirut, then see the film (actually this part was fascinating, utterly, I have to say).

7) If you like macho spy movies, like to try to decipher seemingly complicated stories, can find the escalating intrigue suspenseful despite some of the idiocy, and think this whole genre is kinda cool regardless, then go. For pure entertainment value, Spy Game is worthwhile. It is clichéd but fun. It will make you roll your eyes, but that is part of the enjoyment. And finally, it proves that Brad Pitt is above all this, but still can do it just the same. He can even makes the two dimensional character he plays here seem multi-faceted.

I was disappointed by Ghost World - mainly because I'm an everlasting ingenue. When I'm eighty I'll still be looking at the world with wide, fascinated eyes. When I was in high school, and college, I didn't have the angst that so many people go on about. (And contrary to the conclusions one might draw from this fact, I didn't have a perfect or trama-free childhood.) Nevertheless, when I see a movie like this, I want to crawl into the screen, slap the teenager who can't seem to see any beauty around her and tell her to snap out of it.

Thora Birch's Enid is such a teenager. Although very funny and somewhat sad, she essentially just annoyed me. Her friend Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) has a much better grip on life and her future and how to acutally have a life. Kids, immature and stupid, don't quite understand how their actions can affect other people, and it is difficult watching as Enid, either to be contrary or in an effort to find herself or be kind, steps all over everyone.

The problem with this film is that she never learns the lesson. I know quite a few people who don't, but I don't really enjoy watching a movie about it. I subscribe to the "student of life" philosophy, and I figure we are always learning, growing and changing. However, I have to admit that Birch's performance is incredible, often giving me reason to pause, sit back and give her another chance.

Illeana Douglas plays a politically correct art teacher, and - as usual for Douglas - she steals the show. In a perfect world, Illeana Douglas would be our Gwenyth Paltrow and we wouldn't be able to get away from her - and we wouldn't want to.

I guess the main trouble is that I didn't like the relationship between Enid and the character played by Steve Buscemi. I had trouble believing in it. (On the other hand, why is it that when Buscemi plays a middle-aged geek he becomes more attractive to me?) The end was confusing and a serious letdown. I don't know if Enid finally gets it or just gives up.

The picture was directed by Terry Zwigoff, adapted from Daniel Clowes' comic books. They are a talented team, and I didn't hate the picture, but I didn't like it either, and therefore I really wouldn't recommend it. Unless, of course, you are one of those folks who are just filled with angst.

©2001 Lovell Mahan-Moutaw
CineScene