Review of The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) by Alexander C — 14 Jul 2012

And This Is Why Drug Dealers Aren't Good Spies.

I am generally more inclined to be merciful on films that don't seem to have high aspirations. This movie isn't trying to be Great Art. Okay, it's relying on star power, which it only sort of has. Still, this movie was made in the sweet spot between [i]Fast Times at Ridgemont High[/i] and [i]Shanghai Surprise[/i], so there's that. But anyway, it's not trying as hard to be exciting as a lot of movies I've seen, and it manages to be pretty good at being exactly what it's trying to be. Now, of course, I tend to be inclined to give these same movies less credit when they succeed, simply because they have reduced ambitions, but still. I found this movie a bit boring, but I never really thought it was all that bad, because it wasn't doing anything exciting and experimental which got on my nerves instead. It's not exactly a taut espionage thriller, either, but it tells the story it has simply and well enough. It's a little sad that the movie doesn't even mention in passing how crazy the story later got, though I suppose that would be a bit much for the story we have.

Christopher Boyce (Timothy Hutton) and Andrew Daulton Lee (Sean Penn) were children of privilege. They grew up together in one of the tonier neighbourhoods in Southern California. They were altar boys together. Christopher has just dropped out of the seminary and is kind of at loose ends, except for his interest in falconry. Daulton is a drug dealer with a cocaine habit to match. Christopher's father, Charlie (Pat Hingle), gets him a job working for defense contractor RTX (really TRW). Christopher goes to work in the "black vault," where all sorts of secret information is kept and where the teletype machines broadcast even more. And indeed, every once in a while, wires get crossed, and RTX gets messages intended for the CIA. It is there that he discovers that the CIA is working to oust the Prime Minister of Australia. Christopher does a little research and is properly horrified by the whole thing. He decides that the best thing to do is to get Daulton to go down to Mexico and start selling information to the Soviets in the person of embassy staffer Alex (David Suchet). Mysteriously enough, things start to unravel, not least because Daulton isn't Mr. Reliability.

Mind you, all of this is based on a true story. In fact, finding out what happened later makes Christopher a considerably less sympathetic character. The movie mentions that Christopher got forty years and Daulton got life; this is generally agreed to be because of Daulton's prior criminal record. This despite the fact that he never would have gotten into espionage without Christopher. How could he? But of interest is the fact that Christopher is the one who later escaped from prison and went on an actual crime spree. Bank robbing, in fact. It's believed that his intention was to raise the money to escape to the Soviet Union, though he was arrested in Port Angeles, Washington. They moved Daulton (who upon his release became Sean Penn's personal assistant, believe it or not) to a different prison because of it. As it is in this movie, though, Christopher got into the whole thing over ideals. He didn't like what the US government was doing and thought this was the way to balance accounts. Daulton was in it for the money.

I am unclear as to why David Suchet was cast. Because, let's face it, he is not convincingly Russian. I admit, I was waiting for him to shift into a prissy Belgian accent and grow ridiculous moustaches, but even leaving the Poirot thing aside, I just wasn't buying it. He also kind of comes across like the only adult in the whole piece. I don't just mean that Christopher and Daulton are mostly just spoiled kids. I mean that, when Christopher starts work in the black vault, Gene (Dorian Harewood) mixes him a margarita in the shredder. He goes to a strip club with his coworkers, including Laurie (Mady Kaplan). I know it would have been hard for Daulton's parents to turn him in when he came home for New Year's (they specify that he missed Christmas by a week), but by not doing it, they were actually harboring a fugitive. And how did he repay them? He let his younger brother (Chris Makepeace) get out of the car midway through the high speed chase with the cops. Alex seems to be the only responsible person out there, and I was waiting for him to start solving crimes.

The film makes a couple of brief stabs at giving us some character development, but really, this is one place where Daulton is a better character than Christopher. His motivations are clear. He's in it for the money, the same reason he probably got into drug dealing. Christopher is shown watching the Watergate hearings, and he does a bit of research on the political situation in Australia. So okay, he's trying. And they show that Daulton is reading a whole bunch of books about espionage--which combine with the drugs to make him paranoid, not better at what he's doing. And, yes, sneaking into the Soviet embassy in Mexico is probably the easiest way to get information to the Soviets, especially when you're coming to them with it. On the other hand, this means that they are doing their illegal activities [i]in Mexico[/i], where they have ways of getting information out of people that are not going to happen in the United States. In general--and avoiding all conversation about terror suspects if I can--the US cops are less inclined toward beating people with telephone books, you know?