The Recruit - Snatching Defeat From The Jaws of Victory

Jan

1

The Recruit - Snatching Defeat From The Jaws of Victory

≡ Category: Action, Drama, Movie Reviews By Country, Not Worth Your Time, United States |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: United States
Genre: Drama/Action
Director: Roger Donaldson
Year: 2003

Rating:

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME

The Recruit begins rather promisingly. Before the wordless credit sequence is finished, we know a number of things about James Clayton (Colin Farrell). He is an orphan, his father died in a plane crash, and CIA Head Instructor Walter Burke (Al Pacino) is researching him.

We then see James oversleep for a software demonstration. When he finally arrives, do you think he pulls it off? I think this sequence is supposed to tell us that Clayton is so brilliant that he can goof off and be irresponsible and still come out ahead. That’s every teenager’s fantasy and more than a few adults’.

That night, Burke shows up at Clayton’s bartending gig and recruits him for the CIA.

These days, when Pacino’s name is above the title, I wince, but in these early scenes, his hammy snakeoil salesman persona serves the film well.

Anyone paying attention knows by this point that Clayton is going to take the job, his character and skills are going to be tested, and Clayton’s memories of his dead father will come into play. The audience knows all of this nine minutes into The Recruit. That is very good screenwriting, so it’s no surprise that Robert Towne, the legendary screenwriter of Chinatown, had a hand in the screenplay.

The big mystery here is, will Pacino turn out be a crook or a mensch? The second question is “Will The Recruit turn out to be a standard hero story (Clayton wins) or a 70’s throwback paranoid downer ala The Parallax View?” Either one would be just fine, provided the execution remained at the same high level that characterizes the opening minutes of The Recruit.

For a while, the screenplay continues in this highly professional vein. The CIA job interview sequences are quite witty. When one interviewer ask Clayton if he considers himself “subjectively firm or objectively flexible,” Clayton answers “metaphysically wrinkle-free.”

From a technical point of view, director Roger Donaldson eschews standard MTV editing. Instead, the camera flows around the participants, rarely at rest. The cinematography adds a welcome jolt of energy to the film and is psychologically appropriate to a world in which the perception of reality is continually shifting.

If The Recruit had continued like this, it would have been a first class genre flick, but the filmmakers drop the ball. The first warning sign shows up late, a full 90 minutes into the picture. We’ve been told there are no floppy drives on the computers at CIA headquarters in Langley, but someone plugs a thumb drive that can hold a gigabyte of information into a keyboard in order to steal a program. My horsepucky detector started beeping at that point and it was all downhill from there.

At a crucial juncture, Burke, whose dialog up to this point has been rigorously logical, starts spouting utter nonsense that a child could see through. Worst of all is Burke’s final speech, which features Pacino in full “Hoo-Hah” mode.

By the time the credits roll, implausibility has been piled on top of implausibility until The Recruit collapses under the weight of its own absurdity.

It’s often said that a movie can have a mediocre 2nd act, but as long as the 1st and 3rd acts are strong, the audience will walk out of the theater happy. In a way, The Recruit supports that contention. Intriguing as The Recruit is throughout most of it’s running time, all the audience is going to remember is how badly the filmmakers bungle the big finish.