Spy Game (2001)

Watched ‘Spy Game’ (2001) on Netflix.

A Tony Scott film starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) is an undercover CIA agent who has been arrested in China by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as he was trying to free a female prisoner from an army prison in Suzhou, in an unsanctioned operation he started in his own personal interest. He will be executed in 24 hours if the US government does not claim him and bargain for his release.

In CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a group of CIA executives gather to discuss the case. The President is due to visit China for a major trade deal and if they claim Tom Bishop as their man, it could jeopardize the deal.

They summon Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), Tom’s Bishop’s mentor, in order to understand the details of Bishop’s history. While appearing to be looking into his arrest and the next steps, they actually seek to learn something in his history that will give them the pretext not to abandon him.

Nathan knows these men, their cunning and their machinations. Its his last day at work before retirement, there are less than 24 hours left and Bishop is being tortured even as they are speaking about him.

He must outsmart these men and circumvent the system to have Bishop rescued…

Interspersed in between Nathan’s agile moves in CIA to realize his rescue plan are flashbacks of Bishop’s work in Vietnam, East Germany and Beirut.

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Lines noted…

‘When I was a kid, I used to spend summers on my uncle's farm. He had this plow horse that he used to work with every day’

‘It was a tip of the sword deal out of Beirut intended to be clean and efficient in a place that was anything but. By 85 the place was a nightmare’

(An American idiom commonly used in military operations to mean the first soldiers to go into a war zone)

‘Sheikh Salameh was our target. He ran a large terrorist faction that had taken out a number of American targets including at least one of the embassy bombings. That left 212 people dead. Mostly civilians’

‘His cover was as a photojournalist. Bishop did a day-in-the-life spread on the doctor that we got printed in the Times’

‘Will you join us?’

‘Maybe just for a minute. I don't want to be a third wheel’

(A third wheel is someone who is unnecessary to a group and is tagging along. In this case, the group usually consists of a couple and the third, superfluous person)

‘We have some fucked up barometer for success don't we?’

‘Give me bottom dollar’

Bottom dollar - the last of one's money; all of one's money; a sure thing. This idiom describes something that is sure or certain to happen.

Dear John Letter - A Dear John letter is a letter written to a man by his wife or romantic partner to inform him that their relationship is over, usually because she has found another lover. The man is often a member of the military stationed overseas, although the letter may be used in other ways, including being left for him to discover when he returns from work to an emptied house. It is usually sent after time-away on holiday.

#westerncinema