Review of Spy Game (2001) by Russ S — 20 May 2008
Don't let the flamboyant overdirecting, excessive quick cuts or meaningless espionage subplots fool you: underneath all the flash, there's a profound lack of substance to this movie.
No amount of sound-effect assisted camera movements ("Whoosh!!!") can really make up for sequences that imply, rather than tell, a story. The screenplay's structure, while initially promising, leads to a fairly uninteresting resolution, with no consequence or weight.
The leads do a lot of spy posing, talking in whispers, dropping codes, skulking around pretending nobody notices them, and being vague, but the only thing that really communicates is the "vague" part. These are definitely Hollywood spies. Redford somehow establishes a character in all this, and he makes a lot of scenes work, but Pitt and McCormack are underdeveloped to the point of cypher.
This review of Spy Game (2001) was written by Russ S on 20 May 2008.
Spy Game has generally received positive reviews.
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