Spy Games Review
by Tim Wick

Sometimes Good enough is just about right.

Spy Game, the latest in a long line of spy thrillers, falls squarely in the 'good enough' category. Something of a cross between a Jack Ryan film and The Usual Suspects, the movie doesn't tread any new ground, but it treads old ground in a way that is both engaging and enjoyable. Much like K-Pax, which had solid performances by Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges to anchor an otherwise pretty basic plot, Spy Game relies on solid outings by Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

Fortunately, Pitt and Redford come through. Redford really hasn't made too many awful films in his career, although past performance is no guarantee of future results. He has taken to acting his age and this time plays a tired CIA operative just about to retire. As is so often the case in this kind of picture, his retirement is nowhere near as uneventful as he had expected. The movie revolved around his protege (Pitt), who is being held prisoner in China. We don't know why, but we have a hunch that Redford does.

The film, which pretends to be about getting Pitt out of jail, is really a lot more about the old war horse (Redford) playing a cat and mouse game with a bunch of faceless suits who are trying to use him as an excuse to do something he doesn't want them to do. They know how to play the game just about as well as he does, but the advantage he has is that he was one of the guys who wrote the rules.

Perhaps the reason the movie is a good film but doesn't reach greatness is because a huge chunk of the film is told in flashback as Redford tells the story of how he trained Pitt and why Pitt is probably in a Chinese prison. The flashback stuff, which is where just about all the action of the film comes from, is extremely well done. I can't argue with it at all. But it was the safe choice.

There is nothing wrong with the safe choice, but I will suggest that if the film had remained focused more on the current situation with Redford and less on the past, it could have been even better. Whenever Redford was talking his way past security checkpoints a few steps in front of the bureaucrats bent on keeping him in check, I was reminded of the film No Way Out. In many ways, the halls of CIA headquarters are far more dangerous than the war torn streets of Beruit where we spend much of the flashback sequences. Redford's character has outwitted a lot of people who don't know how to play his game. But now he is a rat in a maze that he designed. He knows the way out, but so does everyone else.

Pitt's character, though interesting, is almost better as someone who we don't really know. We would have lost a solid performance by Pitt, but I think we may have ended up with a slightly better film.

Those musings aside, there is nothing WRONG with this film. It is a safe star vehicle for a studio whose primary purpose is making money. Major studios annoy me not because they make safe films like this, but because they make them poorly. Not every movie can push the envelop and not every movie should. Sometimes a movie should simply entertain. We go to the movies for an escape. Great films are typically wonderful experiences, but they are often not an escape. If the studios could make more films like Spy Game - films that entertain but don't look like they were stamped out on the studio back lot in a week because the budget was sucked up by Brad Pitt's salary - I'd probably lay off. Instead, they make big budget paint by numbers films (like Planet of the Apes and The Mummy Returns) that make up for being awful by being loud.

Spy Game is neither innovate nor particularly creative but where is the fault in that? Why fault the film for solidly delivering on it's simple promise?

Please note that my initial review of Planet of the Apes was fairly positive. I've spent the last several months thinking about the film and have since come to the conclusion that it was, in fact, not very good at all. I, like everyone else, have the right to change my mind.

Spy Games

Three and a Half Beakers
(out of five)

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