Spy Game

This article is about the film. For the TV series of the same title, see Spy Game (TV series).

Spy Game
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tony Scott
Written by	Michael Frost Beckner David Arata
Produced by	Marc Abraham Douglas Wick Thomas Bliss
Starring	Robert Redford Brad Pitt Catherine McCormack
Cinematography	Daniel Mindel
Edited by	Christian Wagner
Music by	Harry Gregson-Williams
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	November 19, 2001 (2001-11-19)
Running time	126 minutes
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$92 million
Box office	$143,049,560

Spy Game is a 2001 American spy film directed by Tony Scott and starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. Spy Game is a true to life composite of many real intelligence operations. Spy Game is more real than fiction and is based on the life of intelligence operative Tom Golden, the son of an Arkansas dirt farmer. Golden was an army intelligence officer assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War. Nathan Muir was Golden’s CIA code name in Southeast Asia, and during his intelligence operations in Indochina. Golden served a distinguished career in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), The Pentagon, and the CIA. He served in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Central and South America. Tony Scott does a great job of presenting the true to life dangers faced by Intelligence Agents in the field and the bureaucratic decisions sometimes made in Washington that are driven by politics. The film grossed $62,362,785 in the United States and $143,049,560 worldwide.

Plot

Set in 1991, the film depicts the United States and People's Republic of China governments on the verge of a major trade agreement, with the American president due to pay a visit to China to seal the deal. The Central Intelligence Agency gets word that its Special Activities Division operative Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) has been captured trying to free an Englishwoman, Elizabeth Hadley (Catherine McCormack), from a Chinese prison near Su Chou. Bishop is being questioned under torture and will be executed in 24 hours unless he is claimed by the U.S. government. If the CIA claims Bishop as an agent, they risk destroying the trade agreement. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that Bishop was operating without permission from the Agency.

In an attempt to quickly deal with the situation, CIA executives call in Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), an aging mid-level case officer on his last day before retirement and the man who recruited Bishop. Although they tell Muir they simply need him to act as a "stop gap" to fill in some holes in their background files, the officials are hoping he gives them the smoking gun they need to justify letting Bishop die. Muir attempts to save Bishop by leaking the story to CNN through a contact in Hong Kong, believing that the CIA will rescue Bishop once a public outcry puts pressure on them to do so. Unfortunately, the tactic only stalls them as a phone call to the FCC from a high-ranking executive results in CNN retracting the story.

During the debriefing, Muir describes how he recruited Bishop into the MACV-SOG when Bishop was a Marine Corps sniper in Vietnam. Muir also discusses their tour of duty in Berlin in 1976. Muir also discusses Bishop's spy work in Lebanon, which was the last time the two saw each other. During the mission in Lebanon, Bishop met Hadley, and they began developing romantic feelings for each other. However, it is later revealed that Hadley was involved in a bombing of the Chinese embassy in the UK, causing her to flee the country. Fearing that Bishop's feelings for Hadley might compromise his cover and the mission, Muir tips off the Chinese to Hadley's location in return for freeing an arrested US diplomat. Chinese agents kidnap Hadley, and Bishop cuts all ties to Muir when he discovers his involvement. After realizing Hadley was the target of Bishop's rescue attempt, Muir finally learns that he greatly underestimated Bishop's feelings for her.

Running out of time, Muir secretly creates a forged urgent operational directive from the CIA director to commence Operation Dinner Out, a rescue mission spearheaded by U.S. Navy SEALs, which Bishop laid the groundwork for as a "Plan B" to his own rescue attempt. Using US$282,000 of his life savings and a misappropriated file on Chinese coastline satellite imagery, Muir bribes a Chinese energy official to cut power to the prison for 30 minutes, during which time the SEAL rescue team retrieves Bishop and Hadley.

Bishop, who is rescued at the end of the film 15 minutes before his scheduled execution, realizes Muir was behind his rescue since the name of the plan to rescue him, "Operation Dinner Out", was a reference to a birthday gift that Bishop gave Muir while they were in Lebanon. When the CIA officials are informed of the rescue, Muir has already left the building and is seen driving off into the countryside.

Cast

• Robert Redford as Nathan Muir
• Brad Pitt as Tom Bishop
• Catherine McCormack as Elizabeth Hadley
• Stephen Dillane as Charles Harker
• Larry Bryggman as Troy Folger
• Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Gladys Jennip
• Ken Leung as Li
• David Hemmings as Harry Duncan
• Michael Paul Chan as Vincent Vy Ngo
• Garrick Hagon as CIA Director Cy Wilson
• Shane Rimmer as Estate Agent
• Benedict Wong as Tran
• Adrian Pang as Jiang
• Omid Djalili as Beirut: Doumet
• Dale Dye as US Navy SEALS Commander Wiley
• Charlotte Rampling as Anna Cathcart
• James Aubrey as Mitch Alford
• Colin Stinton as Henry Pollard

Production

Filming locations included:

• HSBC Hong Kong headquarters building, presented as the American embassy. (Note that there is actually a U.S. consulate general, but no embassy in Hong Kong.) The interior of the embassy was filmed at the Lloyd's building in London.
• Budapest, Hungary served as Cold War Berlin in the film. The film was shot there to save money, and also because Berlin has changed a lot since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The helicopter landing in the film's climax was filmed at an airfield near Budapest.
• Casablanca, Morocco became 1980s Beirut in the film. The crew started off in Haifa, Israel, but had to shift to Morocco because of the Al-Aqsa Intifada which broke out in late 2000. The Vietnam War segment was also filmed in Morocco.
• Oxford, England: the former Oxford Prison, which closed in 1996, was used as the Chinese prison set in Su Chou (Suzhou). (It has since been converted into a luxury hotel.) Shots of the ambulance approaching the prison were also filmed in Queen's Lane in Oxford.
• The GlaxoSmithKline research centre in Stevenage, England was used for exterior and some interior scenes at the CIA headquarters. (Aerial shots of the real headquarters were also included.)
• The CIA lobby location was in the Senate House of the University of London. Close-ups of Robert Redford as Muir driving from his home to the CIA headquarters were filmed in Regent's Park, standing in for Washington, D.C..
• A second unit filmed footage in Washington, D.C. and Virginia for the scenes of Muir driving to and from the CIA headquarters.
• The boat used in the filming was an original Russian made hydrofoil and was provided by Stephen Canning of Iron Wolf Imports at the direction of Jonathan Frost. The boat was purchased in Lithuania and shipped to Morroco by truck, and then was unfortunately destroyed along with other props in Morocco.

Box office

The film opened at number three in its opening weekend in the United States.

External links

• Spy Game at IMDb
• Spy Game at AllMovie
• Spy Game at Rotten Tomatoes
• Spy Game at Metacritic
• Spy Game at Box Office Mojo
• Spy Game script at Script-o-Rama