The Recruit (2003)
Directed by Roger Donaldson
A brilliant CIA trainee must prove his worth at the Farm, the agency's secret training grounds, where he learns to watch his back and trust no one.
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What critics compared The Recruit to
Directed by Roger Donaldson with loads of off-kilter camera angles, and written by Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer and Mitch Glazer, whose collective credits range from "Cocktail" to "Great Expectations," the film has a setup nearly as preposterous as "Spy Game," Tony Scott's superior confabulation of guns, guts and blond-on-blond glamour.
The movie is, essentially, a con game, similar to movies like "Spy Game," "The Game," "House of Games" and "The Spanish Prisoner," but with more action and some romance.
Will it find a middle ground like Spy Game (2000)—which largely worked because of the freaky resemblance between Robert Redford and his younger, chipmunk-cheeked alter ego, Brad Pitt?
Despite the mentor/student and gray government portrayal similarities to 2001's "Spy Game," this film thankfully doesn't exactly mimic its plot.
Resembling Tony Scott's "Spy Game," the 2001 thriller about the older spy tutoring the younger one, "The Recruit" puts CIA agent Pacino into the role of a father figure to young Farrell, whom he persuades to join the organization.
The movie is, essentially, a con game, similar to movies like "Spy Game," "The Game," "House of Games" and "The Spanish Prisoner," but with more action and some romance.
The end result is a Spy Game type movie with a The Game sense of gimmickry that falls short of either of those superior films.
Will it be a put-on, like the 1997 The Game (ugh)?
Spy Game with brunette instead of blonde studs, The Recruit suggests that the CIA is a little like a reality-testing funhouse: a discursive series of inward-collapsing machinations like one might have found once upon a time in Fincher's The Game.