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Spy hard
Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) goes undercover in Beirut.
Spy Game (ENGLISH)
Cast: Robert Redford, Brad Pitt
Dir: Tony Scott
THIS IS a smart actioner with a super wide scope as far as time frames and locations go. There is editing wizardry at hand as there are two time frames - one the actual 24 hours in which the movie is set and the other wider time frame from 1975 during the Vietnam war till the end of the cold war in 1991 - and the editor has to be praised for keeping a tight rein on the plot.
The action shifts from a high security prison in China to Vietnam, onto Berlin and Beirut. The core of the film, the crucial 24 hours, however, takes places in the bureaucratic corridors of the CIA. The quick cuts between the wind-swept ruined grandeur of Beirut (actually Morocco), the lush rice fields of Vietnam (also Morocco) with the ever present choppers buzzing in the background, the industrial nightmare of Berlin (Budapest this time around), the claustro- phobic prison (a 16th century prison in Oxford!) and the quiet, blue, office maze (good old Shepperton Studios) were innovative as sequences telescoped into each other.
The film starts with a daring rescue in a high security prison in China. The rescue goes wrong and an American is captured and to be executed for espionage. The American, Tom Bishop, is a rogue operative of the CIA who would rather have him dead as they do not wish to jeopardise the impending US-China trade talks.
The CIA calls in Nathan Muir, Bishop's mentor, for information to deal with the situation. Muir is on his last day at office and looking forward to a retirement in the sun and sands of the Bahamas. Muir is now working against the clock - Bishop is going to be executed in 24 hours - to save his protégé.
As Muir tells the CIA about Bishop, we are taken to Muir's first meeting with Bishop as an idealistic sniper in Vietnam, through the training in Berlin that makes Bishop one of the best agents of the CIA to the operation in Beirut where Bishop meets and falls in love with Elizabeth Hadley, an aid worker with a secret agenda. The relationship sours the bond between Muir and Bishop.
Muir's cat and mouse games against the well-oiled machinery of the CIA to rescue Bishop are cathartic for Muir.
Robert Redford plays Muir skilfully using his years of experience to create a Muir you can believe in - a man so driven by his job, that he has no time for relationships.
Brad Pitt is an effective foil to Redford's Muir as the cool dude Bishop (there should be a law against such sinfully handsome men!). The look, feel and sound of the film is excellent - sometimes distractingly so and the freeze frames with a digital clock spelling out the time running out was a tad dramatic.
Praise is due for director Tony Scott who has helmed blockbusters like Top Gun and superb thinking thrillers (it is not an oxy-moron) like Crimson Tide and Enemy of the State for coming up with yet another entertaining, taut, well-paced flick.
MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER
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