MOVIE - THE RECRUIT - Review Rating $$$$$ (OUT OF 10)
STARRING - Al Pacino, Colin Farrell (Minority Report), Bridget Moynahan (Layla), Gabriel Macht , Mike Realba & Dom Fiore (Instructor No. 1)
DIRECTOR - Roger Donaldson (No Way Out, Cocktail, Thirteen Days, Dante's Peak, Species)
The Recruit is the story of a young CIA agent's induction into the world of international intrigue.
You know a movie's in trouble when it announces, early on, that its whole premise is absurd. Burke (Pacino), who is an instructor at the CIA's training facility "the farm", takes time off work to personally recruit Jim Clayton (Colin Farrell). During this initial phase of the recruitment Burke tells Clayton that the CIA doesn't actually recruit candidates in this manner. Lo and behold everybody else has to actually apply and there is no shortage of qualified candidates. Its at this stage you have to decide, as an audience member, whether you will be sufficiently able to suspend disbelief to enjoy the rest of the movie.
Any curiosity, aroused by the opportunity to peer through the looking glass into the CIA's training program, is tempered by the knowledge that if the premise is false the rest of the story is likely highly exaggerated as well. The likelihood that the CIA actually tortures trainees is remote. The likelihood that rookie agents would be given the missions they are, in the film, is even more remote.
The amateurish nature of this production is best exemplified in a bedroom scene when Clayton and his love interest, fellow trainee Layla (the beautiful Bridget Moynahan), both suspect the other is spying on them. This sequence was so contrived that it produced laughter in the audience I watched the film with.
The probability of enjoying the movie is further reduced in direct proportion to the number of times you had to sit through the previews for the film. The Recruit is a classic case of 'if you've seen the preview...you've seen the film'. The order of events, in the preview, are slightly out of sequence but if you can add 2 + 2 you will already have deduced the entire plot and its predictable outcome. The 100 minutes of the movie you don't see in the preview provide little additional compelling information.
Touchstone Pictures deserves to be roundly criticized for taking away any element of suspense The Recruit may have otherwise clung to as a justification for moviegoers to stick around to the end of movie.
The only reason I can think of to see the recruit is the opportunity to see Pacino in action. His performance infuses an otherwise incredulous story with modicum of credibility. One gets the sense that he knows he's in a bad movie. His final words, "here's goes nothing", could easily be applied to the entire film. Pacino's character wants recognition for his accomplishments and Pacino himself should be credited for demonstrating that a great actor can make a bad movie tolerable.
Colin Farrell does a more credible job portraying the recruit than he did playing an aggressive attorney in the summer blockbuster Minority Report. He, and the rest of the cast, are handicapped by the script which required at least one rewrite. Another sign that an intriguing premise didn't quite pan out as expected.
There is a remote possibility that The Recruit was inspired by real events. To explain any further would completely give away the ending (See Greg's Previews).
Pacino's character is fond of reminding us that "nothing is as it seems". Unfortunately, The Recruit is exactly like what the previews suggest it is, a predictable and uninspired spy flick.
Alternative Reviews:
Roger Ebert's Review
Rotten Tomatoes Reviews
Official Website for The Recruit
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© Copyright
2003
David Schwartz.
Last update:
8/9/03; 11:07:11 PM.
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