Espionage

The Recruit

"Nothing is as it seems" in The Recruit, a guessing-game thriller that employs plot twists and conflicting loyalties as its primary raison d'être. Surrounded by potential deception, a newly recruited CIA officer (Colin Farrell) must determine if his manipulative instructor (Al Pacino) is being honest when he identifies Farrell's fellow recruit and love interest (Bridget Moynihan) as an enemy "mole" assigned to steal a dangerous computer virus from CIA headquarters. While claiming to offer an insider's look at CIA training methods, this engrossing yet ultimately predictable plot is pure Hollywood fantasy; any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental, leaving the perpetually unshaven and scruffily coiffed Farrell to fend for himself in Pacino's cynical arena while tracing his familial roots in the spy game. Wearing its cleverness on its sleeve, The Recruit is an adequately elaborate puzzle of perceptions. "Everything is a test," as Farrell soon realizes, and attentive viewers will enjoy piecing it all together. --Jeff Shannon

James Clayton, a bartender and a computer hacker, accepts the offer of a recruiter looking for CIA trainees over a comfortable job at Dell computers; soon, he plunges into a gruelling world of physical, mental, psychological tests, and heads into a missio
Genre: Suspense
Rating: R
Release Date: 25-JAN-2005
Media Type: DVD

Torn Curtain

Paul Newman and Julie Andrews star in what must unfortunately be called one of Alfred Hitchcock's lesser efforts. Still, sub-par Hitchcock is better than a lot of what's out there, and this one is well worth a look. Newman plays cold war physicist Michael Armstrong, while Andrews plays his lovely assistant-and-fiancée, Sarah Sherman. Armstrong has been working on a missile defense system that will "make nuclear defense obsolete," and naturally both sides are very interested. All Sarah cares about is the fact that Michael has been acting awfully fishy lately. The suspense of Torn Curtain is by nature not as thrilling as that in the average Hitchcock film--much of it involves sitting still and wondering if the bad guys are getting closer. Still, Hitchcock manages to amuse himself: there is some beautifully clever camera work and an excruciating sequence that illustrates the frequent Hitchcock point that death is not a tidy business. --Ali Davis

TORN CURTAIN was Alfred Hitchcock's 50th film and signals a return to the espionage-romance theme the director showcased in such films as SECRET AGENT and THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. Hitchcock created a distinct look for the film subduing lighting and gauzing the lens to give a more natural less studio-produced feel. Notably it was the strength of studio influence that contributed another change in the look of the film relative to most Hitchcock pictures casting leads that departed from traditional Hitchcock types. Paul Newman and Julie Andrews both at the heights of their popularity when the film was released anchor this cold war spy thriller. An American scientist (Newman) attends a convention in Copenhagen with his fianc e-assistant (Andrews). While there she picks up a message meant for him and is drawn into a complex web of espionage behind the Iron Curtain that he had intended to face alone. Her presence throws all his plans into disarray and the two lovers discover too late that it's easier to get in than to get out again. In one of the film's most memorable scenes Hitchcock shows his audience just how difficult murder can be when opposed by the will for survival.System Requirements:Features: Torn Curtain Rising Scenes Scored by Bernard Herrmann Production Photographs Theatrical Trailer Production Notes Running Time: 128 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG UPC: 025192831522 Manufacturer No: 28315

The Saint

Lightly enjoyable but a disappointment in the context of author Leslie Charteris's popular character, the Saint--who has been played by several actors, most notably George Sanders--this 1997 film is more in keeping with the requirements of high-octane contemporary action than it is the requirements of a particular legacy. Val Kilmer plays Simon Templar, the mercenary spy, who is hired to steal a fusion formula but falls in love with the scientist (Elisabeth Shue) who cooked it up. Kilmer's portrayal bears little resemblance to Charteris's rakish hero, and the film itself becomes increasingly improbable and ponderous the longer it goes on. --Tom Keogh

Gotcha!

Before he started losing his hair (which gave his baby face the maturity it needed for him to be taken seriously as a doctor on E.R.), Anthony Edwards was the quintessential juvenile lead, college division. That is what he plays here: a college kid who is campus champ at an assassination game called Gotcha (that uses fake guns). Then he goes on a summer vacation behind the Iron Curtain (before it came tumbling down) and falls for a female operative (Linda Fiorentino), who not only uses him as an unsuspecting courier for spy stuff but makes him a fall guy, as well. When he finally extricates himself from the trouble, the trouble follows him back to campus. Silly and far-fetched, though Edwards has that wounded-puppy look down perfectly. --Marshall Fine

Spy Game (Widescreen Edition)

A thinking person's thriller, Spy Game employs dense plotting without sacrificing the kinetic momentum that is director Tony Scott's trademark. The film has the byzantine scope of a novel, focusing on veteran CIA operative Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), whose protégé Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) is scheduled for execution in a Chinese prison. It's Muir's last day before retiring (cliché alert!), and Bishop is being deliberately sacrificed by oily CIA officials to ensure healthy trade with China. Muir has 24 hours to rescue Bishop and his perfunctory love interest (Catherine McCormack), and Spy Game connects the mentor's end-run strategy to flashbacks of his student's exploits in Berlin, Beirut, and beyond. Ambitious but emotionally bland--and not as exciting as Scott's Enemy of the State--Spy Game offers pass-the-torch humor between leather-faced Redford and pretty boy Pitt, and although their dialogue is occasionally limp, the movie compensates with efficient style and substance. --Jeff Shannon

A Bullet For Joey (MGM Film Noir)

This 1955 Cold War-era film noir is something of a misfire (great title, though), and you can't go wrong with any movie in which quintessential screen mug George Raft is referred to as "the boss." He's Joe Victor, a deported former crime "big wheel," who's "back in business" after accepting an offer of $100,000 ("that's real velvet") from foreign agents to kidnap a scientist at work on some top secret project. Joe assembles "the boys" as well as Joyce (Audrey Trotter), an increasingly conflicted femme fatale (she's "respectable now"), to seduce the unsuspecting doc. Little Caesar himself, Edward G. Robinson, is intriguingly miscast as the dogged Montreal police inspector on Victor's case. Raft, however, is in fine form as he barks out orders and takes no guff. --Donald Liebenson

Nefarious Eric Hartman (Peter van Eyck) a spy working for the Communists tricks Joe Victor (George Raft) a naive gangster into working for him. Victor's assignment is to kidnap a nuclear physicist and "rub out" a Federal Agent who has been sniffing after Hartman. It isn't long however before Victor realizes where Hartman's sympathies lie.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 027616081018 Manufacturer No: M108101

Foreign Correspondent

Johnny Jones is an action reporter on a New York newspaper. The editor appoints him European correspondent because he is fed up with the dry reports he currently gets. Jones' first assignment is to get the inside story on a secret treaty agreed between two European countries by the famous diplomat Mr. Van Meer. However things don't go to plan and Jones enlists the help of a young woman to help track down a group of spies.Running Time: 120 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 085393186227

The first of Alfred Hitchcock's World War II features, Foreign Correspondent was completed in 1940, as the European war was only beginning to erupt across national borders. Its titular hero, Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea), is an American crime reporter dispatched by his New York publisher to put a fresh spin on the drowsy dispatches emanating from overseas, his nose for a good story (and, of course, some fortuitous timing) promptly leading him to the "crime" of fascism and Nazi Germany's designs on European conquest.

In attempting to learn more about a seemingly noble peace effort, Jones (who's been saddled with the dubious nom du plume Hadley Haverstock) walks into the middle of an assassination, uncovers a spy ring, and, not entirely coincidentally, falls in love--a pattern familiar to admirers of Hitchcock's espionage thrillers, of which this is a thoroughly entertaining example. McCrea's hardy Yankee charms are neatly contrasted with the droll, veddy English charm of colleague George Sanders; Herbert Marshall provides a plummy variation on the requisite, ambiguous "good-or-is-he-really-bad" guy; Laraine Day affords a lovely heroine; and Robert Benchley (who contributed to the script) pops up, albeit too briefly, for comic relief.

As good as the cast is, however, it's Hitchcock's staging of key action sequences that makes Foreign Correspondent a textbook example of the director's visual energy: an assassin's escape through a rain-soaked crowd is registered by rippling umbrellas, a nest of spies is detected by the improbable direction of a windmill's spinning sails, and Jones's nocturnal flight across a pitched city rooftop produces its own contextual comment when broken neon tubes convert the Hotel Europe into "Hot Europe." --Sam Sutherland

For inexplicable reasons, Foreign Correspondent never achieved the fame of The 39 Steps or North by Northwest, but it is certainly good enough to join the ranks of these better-known Hitchcock thrillers. Set just before the beginning of World War II, the film focuses on murder, international intrigue, and an innocent Joel McCrea caught between spies and counterspies. Highlights include an assassination on a rainy day with the killer escaping into a sea of umbrellas, a group of spies who signal their Dutch contacts by turning windmills against the wind, and an extraordinary climax aboard a plane that crashes into the ocean. In McCrea's final speech, you can hear the British filmmaker uniting American patriotism with the anti-Nazi cause. --Raphael Shargel

The Bourne Identity (Widescreen Collector's Edition)

Freely adapted from Robert Ludlum's 1980 bestseller, The Bourne Identity starts fast and never slows down. The twisting plot revs up in Zurich, where amnesiac CIA assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), with no memory of his name, profession, or recent activities, recruits a penniless German traveler (Run Lola Run's Franka Potente) to assist in solving the puzzle of his missing identity. While his CIA superior (Chris Cooper) dispatches assassins to kill Bourne and thus cover up his failed mission, Bourne exercises his lethal training to leave a trail of bodies from Switzerland to Paris. Director Doug Liman (Go) infuses Ludlum's intricate plotting with a maverick's eye for character detail, matching breathtaking action with the humorous, thrill-seeking chemistry of Damon and Potente. Previously made as a 1988 TV movie starring Richard Chamberlain, The Bourne Identity benefits from the sharp talent of rising stars, offering intelligent, crowd-pleasing excitement from start to finish. --Jeff Shannon

Shiri

A dazzling action movie from South Korea, Shiri follows two South Korean government agents, Ryu and Lee, as they pursue a female super-assassin from North Korea. Meanwhile, an elite paramilitary squad from North Korea has stolen a shipment of CTX, an undetectable liquid explosive of enormous power, which they've planted all over the city of Seoul. As their investigations are successively foiled, Ryu and Lee begin to suspect that there is a mole within the ranks of the agency--and it may be one of them. Both hyperstylish and hyperrealistic, Shiri rips along as a smooth fusion of Hong Kong and American action movies. Ryu's troubled romance with his alcoholic fiancée adds a striking emotional counterpoint to the blazing gunfights and high-speed chases; the ending is unexpectedly moving. It's not surprising that this film beat Titanic's box-office records in Korea. --Bret Fetzer

Tomorrow Never Dies (Special Edition)

Pierce Brosnan returns for his second stint as James Bond (after GoldenEye), and he's doing it in high style with an invigorating cast of costars. It's only appropriate that a Bond film from 1997 would find Agent 007 pitted against a media mogul (Jonathan Pryce) who's going to start a global war (beginning with stolen nuclear missiles aimed at China) to create attention-grabbing headlines for his latest multimedia news channel. It's the information age run amok, and Bond must team up with a lovely and lethal agent from the Chinese External Security Force (played by Honk Kong action star Michelle Yeoh) to foil the madman's plot of global domination. Luckily for Bond, the villain's wife (Teri Hatcher) is one of his former lovers, and at the behest of his superior M (Judi Dench), 007 finds ample opportunity to exploit the connection. Although it bears some nagging similarities to many formulaic action films from the '90s, Tomorrow Never Dies (with a title song performed by Sheryl Crow) boasts enough grand-scale action and sufficiently intelligent plotting to suggest the Bond series has plenty of potential to survive into the next millennium. Armed with the usual array of gadgets (including a remote-controlled BMW), Brosnan settles into his role with acceptable flair, and the dynamic Yeoh provides a perfect balance to the sexism that once threatened to turn Bond into a politically incorrect anachronism. He's still Bond, to be sure, but he's saving the world with a bit more sophisticated finesse. In addition to theatrical trailers, this special edition DVD comes with a feature-length audio commentary by director Roger Spottiswoode, more commentary by stunt director Vic Armstrong and producer Michael G. Wilson, a storyboard overlay that compares action-sequence concepts with final footage, a 45-minute "Secrets of 007" featurette covering the evolution of the Bond character, and an isolated music-only track with an interview of composer David Arnold. Bond would be proud.--Jeff Shannon