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Review:

The Recruit (2003)

Score: 7/10

Director: Roger Donaldson

Stars: Al Pacino, Colin Farrell, Bridget Moynahan, Gabriel Macht.

Synopsis: A computer virus called ICE-9 is being smuggled out of the CIA building at Langley Virginia. An elite hacker named James Clayton is recruited to track down a rouge agent selling the malware to a foreign government.

Review: A computer virus develop by the Central Intelligence Agency called ICE-9 is being smuggled out of the Langley Virginia CIA building by a rouge agent who is a traitor to their country. Mean while, James Clayton ( Colin Farrell ), a young computer hacker who has just created a piece of software that hijacks other broadcasts. James uses this opportunity to impress a hiring manager from the computer company Dell. Later that day James is approached by a CIA recruiter named Walter Burke ( Al Pacino ) who offers him information on his father who has been missing for more than a decade in return for his help stopping the malware from being sold to a foreign government. James agrees and begins his mission, finding the mole within the CIA.

The legendary Al Pacino does great as a tired, disgruntled mentor, and CIA agent. Unfortunately a lot of his dialog is poorly written. The director really needed to cut some of his dialog out specifically. Of course this did not happen in the final cut of the film. If you watch the whole movie to the end you will understand what I am talking about. He is the proverbial trickster who teaches our main protagonist the agency trade craft from their first encounter, that and he is trying to be way cooler than he actually is.

Colin Farrell’s character is really good. He acts obsessed sometimes and seems like he may have some mental health issues but he is a computer hacker after all. Like Rami Malek’s character in the hit TV shows Mr. Robot, a lot of these kinds of people do have social issues. That is one of the reasons why they are so good with computers, it’s a way of communicating with something they can relate to. So James Clayton’s character flaws start to make more sense from that perspective. Another character flaw to look at is his abandonment issues and how he reacts to them. He is hyper concerned with his father’s fate and will not let go of the past. Even in his training you can see this bleeding through his actions and reactions to other people around him. He absolutely is the right person for this mission he has been given since his mind is always thinking, he is constantly manipulating everything available in his current environment to his advantage, and like any good hacker, is always finding key flaws in a system that gives him control over a situation, well, most of the time.

Bridget Moynahan does well enough in this film but her acting is very inconsistent unfortunately. She definitely shines when she is being manipulative and acting on her missions. When looking at her character through the lens of a villainess, you become more interested in her character and what she will do next. When Bridget Moynahan is acting genuinely nice, she seems out of place and fake. Luckily for us the script is flexible enough to give Bridget Moynahan enough to make her character work well in this film. The director should have had her character acting less nice and more focused on the training in my opinion. This would have helped more for in the script when it comes to some of the major plot twists.

The great thing about this film is that we get to see the character go through the CIA training program at the training farm. Unlike the Tom Clancy movie Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014), the character Jack Ryan was already a trained soldier. With this movie The Recruit, James Clayton is a computer geek that is fit and somewhat social. This way we get a protagonist who is capable of moving the plot forward. The bad part is that there was not enough of the CIA training. Surprisingly many scenes of the training were cut out of the film. That is nuts since most people who critique this film wanted to watch more of the training. It’s ironic knowing that the very much needed training scenes was actually removed from the movie but still exists as deleted footage. The main antagonist talks way too damn much and says all of the wrong things. Watching this movie, it’s extremely obvious who the villain actually is, even the trailer for this film eludes way too damn much to who the villain is. That’s a big marketing fail and what is worse is that it was green lit to broadcast on TV.

The film focuses on the idea that nothing is what it seems and they won’t shut up about it. They keep repeating the same dialog over and over again. The movie also focuses on the main protagonist’s abandonment issues. In one scene the instructor Walter Burke tells the guys of the team to complete a certain objective, he then secretly tells the women of the team to prevent the guys from completing their object. Bridget Moynahan’s character Layla stops James from completing his mock mission and he reacts in an extreme way. I won’t go into the rest because it will spoil the film. The movie is tied up in one plot twist after another and layered in such a way that talking about it any further won’t help anyone.

So this is one of the more realistic CIA films unlike The Bourne Legacy (2012) which is full of plot armor and action for the sake of making a Hollywood blockbuster with many unnecessary explosions for better trailers. The film Nothing but the truth (2008) with Kate Beckinsale focuses more on what are the very real consequences of telling the world a CIA operative’s real identity. A special prosecutor investigates a reporter who refuses to out her source. So how does this film compare to most other spy films? This character of James Clayton is a very average fighter, full of character flaws, and can be a person in real life. The film has a heavy focus on movie writing technique of “set up and pay off”. It starts with the skill set every character has in act one, then the training they learn in act two, and finally we get a well enough pay off in the final act. Other spy films are full of plot armor and are most unconvincing.

This movie is very loosely based on the book. Of course I am reviewing a movie and not a book. As for spy films in general? Hollywood is in love with them. They always make some spy flicks that seem to give an amazing man like Jason Bourne the ability to do almost anything. These characters are like super heroes withy out being super heroes. James Bond never seems to actually get older, right? Secret agent movies that are considered to be realistic are very cheap for a studio to make and release since the films use real backgrounds and locations. There is not a lot that needs to be built as far as sets are concerned. Many scenes can be shot in a real life city. Night time shots with the city’s lights and buildings act as beautiful backgrounds. The wardrobe is just real clothing. Look at the FOX TV show “24” and you will understand perfectly what I mean. Realistic spy films shot in 24 FPS can be made with about one hundred million dollars or less and a studio can make the money back with little risk instead of the big budget CGI based films for about two hundred and fifty million. Take into account the advertisement budget that needs to be made back and consider that the studio wants to make a profit. No matter what, you absolutely need a big name celebrity cast in these films. Without one the “risk” of failure is way too great.

The cinematography is well done half of the time. The camera shots are sometimes tilled at a very strange angle that makes no sense what so ever. It makes the film feel less realistic. The musical score is very similar to the very first Tom Clancy splinter cell video game’s CIA level. I guess that was the style around the early 2000s. The lighting is just average, nothing special. The wardrobe is just fine since the movie is supposed to be a reflection of real life. The set dressing is well done. I’m glad to see that the film used real backgrounds instead of CGI, very good for a spy flick. I have said before that most realistic spy film are usually very boring, I’m glad to have finally found one that is not boring. This one is the exception largely in part due to the top notch casting. The film is drama based rather than action based, so there is more of a build up to the scenes that have action instead of a constant flow of action like The Fate of the Furious (2017) with Charlize Theron. The movie is interesting because it shows you a side of spy training that most movies don’t really show you. Films like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) with Alicia Vikander and Henry Cavill just brings you into a career spy’s world. This film has its problems. The movie is not perfect and for some, the movie may leave something to be desired. As for the film its self, it’s well above average and worth a watch if you like spy films.

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