Spy Game

Robert Redford and Brad Pitt are not real men. Savvy action filmgoers have known this for some time, but it becomes painfully obvious in the new film "Spy Game." This film is not quite the fast-paced special operation its previews promise; stretches lag and dawdle, and it falls to Redford and Pitt to carry these dilations by sheer manliness. This they do not have.

Sure, they have low voices and prominent Adam's apples, and numerous women would undoubtedly testify that they have the requisite genitalia. But they do not command the screen with the utterly casual and deadly serious mix of toughness, coolness, and sheer badassosity that, say, Clint Eastwood or Vin Diesel do. When the camera turns to our dashing duo and asks them to intimidate, cajole and charm all at once, they simply turn pretty, dealing broad smiles and twinkling eyes.

This may well satisfy the desires of those people who go to action films hoping that much cuteness will ensue in the course of the action - i.e., people who don't like action films. And isolated moments in this film make quite an impression, thanks mostly to Tony Scott's direction. But for diehards, watching Redford and Pitt primp their way out of dire situations will feel like a thin substitute for the real manly thing.

Redford plays Central Intelligence Agency case officer Nathan Muir. We can tell Muir is an iconoclast because everyone around him wears blue suits and white shirts, and he wears tweed suits and blue shirts. His fellow employees are also much less attractive than Muir, which may explain their glee when Tom Bishop, one of Muir's recruits, goes rogue and gets caught extracting a prisoner from a Chinese jail. Muir is called into the meeting that will decide Bishop's fate, and it becomes clear that the agency is more than happy to wash its hands of Bishop and let him be executed.

As Muir gives them the entire history of his working relationship with Bishop, and not coincidentally relates three long stories of their relationship's development that take up most of the movie's length, it becomes clear that he will play Bishop's knight and save his former charge one last time. Some deft office politicking ensues, as Muir tries to grab all the information before his bosses do and turn it into a plan of action to save his man. Oh, and it's his last day before his retirement.

Of course, Muir relies more on charm than brawn to do this office work; indeed, when he falsely invites one co-worker to his retirement dinner, the co-worker brightens and exclaims "I didn't think you liked me!" as he hands over some highly classified documents. His stubbornness to his bosses feels airy, motivated more by a prissy disdain for the less cute than actual fiery manly truculence. And in trying to save Bishop, he disregards his own rule about letting people go when they get to be too much trouble - and why? Bishop defies orders or screws up in every single story Muir tells, most times with consequences fatal to innocent civilians. He's not a likable or admirable guy. It must be that he's just too cute to die in a Chinese prison.

Scott's direction provides most of the gravitas in this film, but his circling cameras and hazy effects (including the now-ubiquitous yellow filter) work better when a weighty thespianic presence can hold down the center. Redford and Pitt can't take the weight like Scott's past stars, who included real men like Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman and Will Smith. Screenwriters Michael Frost Beckner and David Arata must bear some responsibility for giving this film its momentum-diluting extended-flashback structure and providing a resolution that defies plausibility. In addition, some aspects of the plot, like terrorist bombings of civilian buildings and gross misuse of military resources, just don't feel right now. Were the movie better, these things wouldn't grate so heavily, but it isn't and they do.

And this movie's mediocrity rests entirely on the none-too-broad shoulders of Redford and Pitt. They just don't fit the roles they're playing; nothing about their performances ever catches fire. We're promised a poker game between highly temperamental folks whose hands hold various deadly arms; instead, we get a game of Who's The Prettiest?, and Redford and Pitt hold all the face cards. And that's a game which most dedicated action filmgoers will undoubtedly emerge from as losers.

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