In
Spy Game, directed by Tony Scott, agents of
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) work at cross purposes
to undermine one another and thus the effectiveness of the
agency. Retiring Special Agent Nathan Muir (played by Robert
Redford) hears that his onetime protégée Tom
Bishop (played by Brat Pitt) has been captured by authorities
in China and is scheduled to be executed for the crime of
espionage in twenty-four hours. The capture occurs because
Bishop tries to rescue his girlfriend Elizabeth Hadley (played
by Catherine McCormack) from a Chinese prison, but the attempt
is foiled, and Bishop is caught and later tortured. Muir is
called into a high-level situation room to provide details
on Bishop, whose unauthorized and unsuccessful rescue attempt
has evidently so complicated trade negotiations between China
and the United States that the visit of the American president
to China might be jeopardized. Muir then tells of his history
of working alongside Bishop, from an assassination of a Vietnamese
leader to an assassination attempt of a terrorist in Beirut,
where the two fell out over Bishop’s relationship with
Elizabeth. Such gossip can hardly be useful to CIA bigwigs,
yet they let him chatter on garrulously about his personal
life. However, while in the situation room, Muir tries to
find out about the larger gameplan; when his efforts are spurned,
he puts two and two together and attempts to arrange a covert,
unauthorized back-channel rescue of Bishop and Elizabeth.
The complex history and rescue effort display total ignorance
that the CIA has not undertaken secret missions of the sort
described since the Church Committee report in the late 1960s.
Moreover, the implausibility of the two-helicopter rescue
on the China mainland is compounded by the incredulousness
of Muir’s effort to cash in his life savings of $282,000
to bribe Chinese officials in order to allow Bishop to be
rescued despite their animosity. What will Muir do, now that
he has retired without a nest-egg? How will Bishop show his
gratitude? A gay filmviewer may perhaps surmise the answers
to both questions, but who else will? MH
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