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    		•

    FILMS

    The Recruit (2003)
  • Starring Al Pacino, Colin Farrell, Bridget Moynahan

  • Directed by Roger Donaldson

    • Right from the get-go I'm going to offer up a spoiler warning: Don't read any more of this review if you don't want to know what happens. Consider yourself warned.

    I mean it.

    OK, then—that's your choice.

    The Recruit's main problem comes from that which makes it cool. Not unlike Victor Frankenstein and his monstrous creation, The Recruit is its own undoing. The beginning is very cool. It's fast-paced and moves along rat-a-tat-tat. Colin Farrell gets recruited by Al Pacino for the CIA. Student/pupil relationship ensues. But the premise of the movie is that the verisimilitudinous training for the CIA will leave the lines between reality and training blurry. The new recruits are never really sure what is real and what is "just part of the CIA game."

    This film banks on the idea that you, the viewer, cannot trust what you're seeing as real. You will quickly be conditioned to assumed that, although everything presented is incredibly real-looking, what you're watching is still just a game. Just another test. Just an obstacle for our cute hero to overcome. That even though the stakes are raised, it's all still just a part of the training.

    Which stinks because at some point, albeit very late in the film, there are some things that become absolutely real.

    And it's disappointing, because as the film peels back each onion-layer of duplicity, you realize that the stuff that is actually happening in The Recruit is nowhere cool as what you thought was happening.

    The last 20 minutes of the film, Kerri and I kept exchanging ideas about what was actually happening. And you know what? All of our story ideas where better than what The Recruit offered us.

    Now, make no mistake—there are some decidedly cool moments in this film. Immersing yourself into the training world of the CIA is very exciting. I feel that The Recruit did an admirable job of pulling back the curtain to show us how some of the United States' top operatives get trained.

    It would be interesting to find out just how accurate some of these training scenarios are. I think Kerri mentioned that one of the special features on the DVD has a segment on the accuracy ... unfortunately I didn't watch it.

    There is no way that the plot is enhanced by having Al Pacino be "the disenfranchised CIA trainer who will ultimately betray his country." I'm not saying it couldn't happen, I'm just saying that the way it's offered—well, it just doesn't make the story better. I know it's supposed to be a "Gotcha" ending. It's supposed to be a twist that sneaks up on you and yes, "Surprise!" Unfortunately, it doesn't so much surprise you, as it does ring the doorbell politely and wait as you peek through the curtains at it.

    A few years ago a good friend of mine pointed something out about Al Pacino: It seems he's incapable of performing in a two-hour movie without doing his patented yelling. That throaty, smokey, gravelly yelling that sound like he's going to shoot his lung through the screen. I "pshawed" at my friend and told him he was full of it. And years later, I'm still trying to prove him wrong. It's not that I don't like Al Pacino. Quite the opposite, in fact. But it is a valid point. Hoo-ahhh!