Rating- * * * (3/5)
I was a little split on my opinion of this movie. On the one hand, it was very entertaining and I was very intrigued by the storytelling structure of the film. On the other hand, this same style that makes the film so interesting at first begins to wear down the story and reduces the quality of the characters in the film. The movie stars Robert Redford as a veteran CIA officer and Brad Pitt as his idealistic protégé recruited out of Vietnam. The story begins as Pitt is captured by the Chinese military while trying to rescue his girlfriend from a prison. Since the US and China are in the midst of important trade negotiations, the CIA decides to sacrifice Pitt and let the Chinese have him rather than have the President claim him and start an international espionage crisis that could end the possibility for trade between China and the US. In order to make their final decision on what to do about Pitt, the CIA calls in Redford to describe his relationship and past operations with Pitt. The majority of the movie is told through Redford’s flashbacks of his encounters with Pitt in Vietnam, Berlin, Beirut, and Hong Kong (the story spans almost thirty years, but oddly the characters never look any younger or older…hmmm). As the various scenes progress, we are kept informed of the time of day, since Pitt only has twenty-four hours to live, and the cinematography is very quick-cutting and flashy to convey a fast pace. The flashbacks show us that Pitt is an idealist who refuses to conform to Redford’s unemotional, “greater good” mentality. When Pitt falls in love with one of his assets, he risks her life and his own by using her as bait and then attempting to save her. It is up to Redford to go against his own code of logic to save Pitt and his girlfriend/asset. The plot is very interesting but it could be a lot better if the movie bothered to explore the characters. We learn next to nothing about the main character and if not for Redford’s performance we would not be able to sympathize with him at all. We also never get to see the development of the relationship between Pitt and his female asset, we are just shown that they sleep together one day and made to assume that they must have fallen in love. The movie does do a great job of showing us what it is like to work as a CIA informant, particularly the scenes where Pitt is being put through the training. However, this attention to detail may have sacrificed the attention to characters that all good films require and we ultimately begin to lose interest in the operations as the film goes on. Nonetheless, it is a well-made espionage film and contains some great action sequences, as well as some clever, although too short, dialogue. It doesn’t quite measure up to some of the other spy movies in recent history but it is decent and stylish and good to watch if you can invest some attention.