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The Recruit
*1/2
Cinema
Reviews - Week of April 11, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12A. USA.
115 minutes. Directed by Roger Donaldson. Written by Mitch Glazer, Robert
Towne, Kurt Wimmer. Starring Colin Farrell, Al Pacino, Bridget Moynahan,
Gabriel Macht, Mike Realba, Domenico Fiore.
Nothing is what it seems! Everything is a test!
So says this movie, again and again and yet once more again, until we in
the audience have nothing left to respond except... nobody cares! Everything
is a runaround! We've all stopped watching the screen and started playing
with our cellphones!
"The Recruit" stars Colin Farrell
as a bad boy software designer, genius in his field but working at a bar
to support his income. He suffers from a common affliction among leading
men, in that he has a chip on his shoulder and longing in his eyes, because
he never knew his father, and yet is still desperate to live up to his memory.
In comes Al Pacino, a recruiter for the CIA, who tells Farrell that he fits
the profile they're looking for and manipulates the kid through the way he
talks about stuff from his past. Then we get CIA training sequences, where
nothing is what it seems! Everything is a test! Trust nobody!
It's up to Farrell to keep a stiff upper lip and
use the roleplay tricks that he has been taught in espionage class while
big brawny men take him away to safehouses and torture him... because either
it's real spies who have kidnapped him, or it's all an elaborate test by
the CIA, and in either situation you need to keep your mouth shut. This routine
turns out to be a test several times, until... ooh, we're not sure... because
things seem to be going real weird, and he's being asked to spy on sexy Bridget
Moynahan, who was one of his classmates, and this doesn't add up, and neither
does this... oh, but remember, it could all still be a test! Believe nothing!
Trust nobody! Protect the mission!
You get the idea. There are two possible endings
for "The Recruit". Either all that happens in the developing story is a test.
Or Pacino has been lying to Farrell, and he's one of them ones you're not
supposed to trust. The problem is that the filmmakers have made it obvious
that one of these endings is going to be sprung on us, and we get impatient
in the realisation that everything up until the climax is going to be a pointless
game. The characters don't do anything interesting that would reveal their
natures, and make us care emotionally about how it all turns out -- except
for Farrell, who broods and hints at depth rather professionally, but he
doesn't matter anyway, because his is the one character we can safely say
will turn out alright.
Even if there are a few too many shots where the
camera is tilted sideways to provide Stylish Disorientation, the movie is
sort of well made. But it gets boring pretty quickly. The plot announces
that it's going to gyp us around, not because it has other things to offer,
but out of the hope that we will respect its gamesmanship and let it off
the hook. What's frustrating is that the premise is actually rather interesting.
If the CIA really does blur the line between fact and fantasy in order to
test its potential operatives, then an interesting psychological thriller
could be made to explore what goes on in their minds. Farrell's face knows
that. The screenplay of his movie does not.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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