Film of the week: Redford-Pitt "Spy Game"
By STEVE SAILER, UPI National Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- If all CIA covert operatives look like Robert
Redford and Brad Pitt, the stars of the snazzy but brainless "Spy Game," it's
no wonder our spooks have proven so ineffectual ever since the fall of the
Berlin Wall deprived them of a blond enemy they could infiltrate.

I mean, if Redford snuck into an Al-Qaeda training camp, the Arab terrorists
would take one glance at his hair and shout, "It looks fabulous! What kind of
conditioner do you use?" (Those trainee terrorists spend a little too much
time in all-male camps without even the occasional woman in a tight burqa
around.)

I last saw Redford play a CIA man outwitting his heartless Agency superiors
in 1975's "Three Days of the Condor." In the quarter century since, my own
personal hair has deteriorated sadly. Yet, I'm happy to say, not a hair on
Redford's 64-year-old head has changed, other than that the passing decades
seem to have infused his blond locks with even more body.

"Spy Game" is set in 1991, when retiring master spy Redford learns that his
protégé Pitt has been arrested in Red China. (The wily Communists caught him
by using the sophisticated counter-espionage technique of noticing that Brad
Pitt isn't Chinese.)

Redford has 24 hours to rescue Pitt before he's executed. Yet, "Spy Game"
also shows the story of their mentor-mentee relationship going back to 1975.
"Spy Game" is a sort of "One Day of the Condor and Sixteen Years of
Flashbacks."

In contrast to his hair, Redford's skin looks like that of man who's been
surfing or skiing for the last fifty years. So, you can't figure out how old
Redford's character is supposed to be. The top half of his head seems much
younger than the bottom half.

Also, he looks the same through all 16 years of the story. If director Tony
Scott of "Top Gun" fame wanted more realism, he should have filmed the 1991
scenes first; then shut down production while Redford got a facelift; and
only then filmed the flashbacks.

Redford and Pitt meet back in 1975 at a massive U.S. Army firebase in
Vietnam. Oh, you don't recall the U.S. Army being in Vietnam after 1973?
Well, don't be so picky, because there is plenty in the script that's
stupider than that.

I normally don't harp on logical flaws in plots. The critic who dwells on
how each movie he sees insults his intelligence must be a little insecure
about his own intelligence. The portentous "Spy Game," however, is getting
ridiculously good reviews, probably because Scott wisely keeps the pace
cranked up high enough to discourage rational thought.

Michael Frost Beckner's story is strictly back-of-an-envelope stuff. Three
video store clerks could have come up with a more plausible plot during their
lunch hour.

For example, in 1985 Redford and Pitt set up shop in Beirut, amidst the
artillery duels of Lebanon's civil war, because they need to quietly poison
"the Sheik." He's a terrorist chieftain who is said to be planning to do
something or other to Beirut even more dastardly than what the rubble-strewn
town's sixteen other terrorist chieftains have already done to it.

The Sheik, who looks and dresses more like Aristotle Onassis than Osama bin
Laden, has the good sense to actually lives on the peaceful island of Cyprus.
So, why does Brad Pitt spend two months dodging Kalashnikov-firing militias
in Beirut, rather than just drop by Cyprus and poison the Sheik there?
Because the Sheik is planning to speedboat over to Beirut for his annual
doctor's checkup.

Think about that. The plot is telling us that the Sheik regularly visits the
Mad Max-style battlefield that was Beirut because he's concerned about his
health.

Redford approaches the Sheik's Beirut doctor and asks him to murder his
longtime patient because the CIA believes the Sheik murdered the doctor's
parents a few years ago. The doctor immediately agrees without asking for any
evidence. That makes perfect sense to me. After all, if you can't trust a CIA
covert ops agent in Beirut, who can you trust?

Yet, that's nothing compared to "Spy Game's" ending, which is infinitely
idiotic.

[Spoiler Alert:] Redford forges a fax from the CIA Director ordering an
American military assault on mainland China. (I hadn't been aware that with a
single fax the CIA Director can order the military to commit an Act of War
against a nuclear-armed nation just on his own say-so, but you learn
something new every day.) U.S. commandos chopper in, shoot dozens of Chinese
guards, and haul Pitt out to a U.S. base.

Of course, what would happen happen after the movie ends is that the U.S.
would instantly return Pitt to the Chinese, along with Redford's head on a
pike, as part of the reparations to head off WWIII.

The best thing about the script is that you won't be able to hear much of it
due to the incessantly pounding soundtrack.

The Redford-Pitt casting, however, does illustrate something seldom
mentioned about human nature: Mentors often choose protégés who look like
younger versions of themselves. For example, the 5'-4" Italian-Welsh
president of my old firm was especially close to a 5'-5" Italian-American
junior executive.

Similarly, Redford gave Pitt his first starring role in that fine 1992
fly-fishing drama "A River Runs Through It," where he had Pitt made up to
look like the young Robert Redford. They vowed to do another movie together
(with less fortunate results).

From the standpoint of a man's genes, it makes sense that they encourage him
to feel nepotistic toward younger men who look enough like him that they
might be blood relations. Who knows, Pitt might even be Redford's biological
nephew (or son).

I'm sure he's not, but the two blond actors clearly share more than a few
genes, just as uncles and nephews do.

Yet, Pitt's likeable but self-effacing performance as the scruffily groomed
younger spy suggests once again that the underachieving Pitt lacks a certain
bit of DNA that Redford clearly possesses. Call it the Legend in His Own Mind
Gene. Pitt seems to want to grow up to be Steve Buscemi Jr. more than to be
Robert Redford II.

Pitt should make better use of Redford's avuncular interest in him. He could
start by asking Redford where he gets his hair.

Rated "R" for no particular reason I noticed. It's standard PG-13 fare.

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