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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Spy Game
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 29 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 25 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Michael Frost Beckner (also story)
David Arata
Directed by: Tony Scott
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 21, 2001
DVD: April 9, 2002
Running Time: 115 minutes, Color
Origin: UK / USA
Summary
RATING: R for language, some violence and brief sexuality
Starring Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack, Stephen Dillane, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and Larry Bryggman
On the brink of retirement, a veteran CIA agent (Redford) takes on his most dangerous and personal mission ever when he must organize the rescue of his one-time protégé (Pitt) who has been captured by the Chinese while on a rogue mission.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Crimson Tide Days of Thunder Deja Vu Domino Enemy of the State Man on Fire The Fan The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 True Romance
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Washington Post Rita Kempley
The movie is sleek and shiny as a new bullet, reflecting Scott's patented surplus of style.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
There's more to this movie. Like Pitt at his best, it's pretty, gritty, engrossing and fun.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Serves up a judicious blend of showy action, political intrigue, ticking-clock suspense and intramural CIA one-upsmanship for mainstream entertainment.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
With its cast of back-stabbing functionaries and desk jockeys, Spy Game makes the sport and hard work of espionage seem chillingly real.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Mark Holcomb
Happily, beneath the film's nostalgic veneer and tooth-rattling visual and aural effects lies a mature ambiguity that's unusual for a holiday blockbuster -- and all but unheard of in a Tony Scott movie.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
If you like Redford, Spy Game will be a real treat: a fast electric thriller full of the old Sundance charm and pizzazz.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The script provides an excellent payoff, although action fans may not agree, because that payoff is the equivalent of a Cheshire cat's grin.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Gripping, improbable plot marked by exciting sequences of action.
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The film is brimming with plots, counterplots, dossiers, and sinister corrupt priorities, all held together by the telephoto obsidian gloss of Scott's look-ma-no-pauses style.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The movie asks tough, unflinching questions about America's responsibility to maintain world peace -- and the price we are willing to pay in order to accomplish that. Timely stuff, indeed.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
There's something elegiac in Redford's spy who knows he's a dinosaur but still has a few moves left.
USA Today Mike Clark
More than a quarter-century ago, Redford played a young CIA employee in "Three Days of the Condor." Someday, it will make a great living-room double bill with Spy Game -- the actor then and now.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Entertaining but farfetched, Spy Game might have looked less meretricious a few months back. But the real world has sabotaged its pretense of authenticity. Enjoy it for what it is, a fleet, handsome fantasy of globe-hopping blond demigods.
LA Weekly John Powers
The supremely attractive leads, exotic locations (Vietnam, Berlin and Beirut) and fetishized violence imbue the whole intelligence game with undeniable glamour.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
Manages to be entertaining and reasonably exciting. Scott's style may be slick and tricky but, if this and his last film, "Enemy of the State," are any indication, he's lost the glossy sadism that characterized his previous work.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's well-plotted, acted with a charismatic flair and right on the zeitgeist.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Fans of swooping helicopter shots, alleys filled with backlit geysers of steam, and jump-cut editing that makes MTV look like Ingmar Bergman will relish the intercontinental intrigue and huggermugger that is Spy Game.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is not a bad movie, mind you; it's clever and shows great control of craft, but it doesn't care, and so it's hard for us to care about. To see it once is to plumb to the bottom of its mysteries, and beyond.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
We don't experience the drama from the inside out because everything is on the surface. Redford is the only one who supplies internal life to Spy Game.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
To make silk purses from turgid passages, Mr. Scott does what he always does, gooses them up with every trick in the big-budget book.
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
What Spy Game turns out to be is the old reliable family car spruced up around the edges in an attempt to convince a new generation of buyers that it's a hot number.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf
A mess, but it's a rousing mess, with ample humor and action to satisfy the discerning dullard within.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Michael Dequina
Less Bond than simply boring, a tedious and overdirected race-against-time drama with a few espionage elements thrown in.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
The problem lies in the calculating pretentiousness of using human misery to make shallow entertainment seem serious. It's worth comparing Spy Game with "The Tailor of Panama," John Boorman's far superior exercise in post-cold-war spycraft.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Don't you hate movies where one character is so much smarter than everyone else? That's only one problem with Spy Game, a glossy, suffocatingly predictable star vehicle for Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Frank Lovece
Extremely well-shot espionage thriller that might have worked as an old-fashioned guy's-guy movie if the guys involved had any real, human personality and the espionage were actually thrilling.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Reasonably entertaining spy-versus-spy shenanigans were for me partially undercut by the hypocritical pretense that the CIA and its various forms of mischief were somehow being ridiculed.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Michael L. gave it a7:
Excellent taut thriller with new-millennium A-list star Brad Pitt teaming with 70's A-lister Robert Redford (smartly casted in a 'Buddy picture' after Pitt took direction from Redford in his memorable yet under-appreciated "A River Runs Through it" from 1994) in an entertaining spy film directed by action-obsessed Tony Scott which will have you at times on the edge of your seat. Scott rewards his action hungry audience in calculated doses as the picture is laced with lots of intrigue, and second guessing including a clever use of flashback sequences for additional suspense to this international thriller. Catherine McCormack is appealing as the love interest for Pitt's character which goes beyond obligatory since the joining of the two conflicts with his mentor's guidelines for espionage survival. The chemistry of all the players along with Scott's exciting action input make this an above average Pitt/Redford 'Buddy flick'.
R C gave it a 10:
How can anyone say this film is boring. It's fantastic from beginning to end - gripping, brilliantly acted and intelligent. See it straightaway.
Jason N. gave it a 9:
I thought the overall atmosphere that the movie emits was quite astonishing. Pitt fits his role perfrectly, as does Redford. Fairly well-organised plot to back it up as well. Lastly, I thought the character development of Brad Pitt (Tom Bishop) over the course of the movie was nothing short of brilliant.
Michael P. gave it a 9:
This is a CIA sort of movie that you will either love or hate. Very smartly done, the only thing worng is that the flash backs go for too long. Otherwise, brillant movie!
Jack gave it a 5:
Slick but empty, just passably entertaining.
Lee Edward M. gave it a 10:
The smartest, most poignant espionage film in at least the last couple of years. Both charming and informal, and far less glitzy or glamourous than either the naysaying pundits or the punters seem to think. This movie reminded me of every truly gripping and gritty 'international incident' film I have ever seen, in that all of the field scenarios were very grave and miserable, and the heroes were neither perfect nor pathetic. As for the supposedly confusing and/or boring story... huh? Which movie were you watching? This was a character study written on the world stage, but without the fate of the world hanging in the balance. If anything, I would think that was a refreshing change of pace. It was about as confusing and dull as a classic episode of MASH. I'm genuinely offended. I've seen several modern espionage thrillers in the last litle while, and I am satisfied that this is the most savvy and powerful of the bunch. I'll not be starting up a fansite or anything of that nature, but nonetheless, I truly believe that even the cream of the current crop take a back seat to this movie.
Asterisk V. gave it a 10:
Extremely exciting, and excellent conclusion.
