Spy Game - starring the one, the only, the incredibly old Robert Redford, and a very genuine Brad Pitt

Well after the tragedy that was The Last Castle, I hoped Robert had died of natural causes and had his name immortalized in the guiness book of records as the oldest man in history. But no, he made another fucking film. And what kind of film? A fucking good one, like one I was looking forward to seeing. Brad Pitt, love him or hate him, is a good actor - you'd almost put him into the method actor mould, I reckon he's good at everything he plays and its no doubt caus' he does his homework. Obviously he plays a better druggo then, say, hitman, but hey, thats definately not a folly one can hold against him when you see the finished product.

Just while we're on the subject of Brad, why oh why does he end up working with the fucking dregs of the industry - aren't opinions a wonderful thing. I mean Julia...and I won't even grace these pages with her surname, and now Rob, I mean give me a break. Oh yeah and he seems to pick scripts that have him getting beaten up, this makes me curious. We all saw "Fight Club", he took a few in "Snatch", and numerous other films he's either beating someone up, getting beat up, or watching on while someone else gets the shit pounded out of them, and you should see what happens to him in this! Its screaming for questions to be asked.

So the flick, how was it Benno, you just caned the actors, any good? It fucking rocks, not even Robert Wrinkles could've fucked this up, what an absolute corker of a flick. Wrinkles plays a retiring CIA agent who is alerted to a man-down situation somewhere else in the world. But he's retiring, why should he give a shit? Pitt plays a CIA undercover sniper-come-handyman who's cowboy attitude and overwealming sense of compassion tends to get him in the shit. He's gone rogue, let go by the CIA some time ago. The opening sequence of events see's him as the man-down situation. Wrinkles suspects something is up straight away, takes measures to have any info on Pitt destroyed, they haul him into the boardroom for a "chat", they need Pitt profiled so they can work out what to do. 24 hours and the clock is ticking, hell of a day to retire.

So from scene one right through to the end, the movie plays itself through flashback sequences, and thats how you learn about our two heros. Both really classy characters too, I mean you'd give your last durry away to become them. So Wrinkles' answers to the questions become the bulk of the movie, meanwhile he's trying to work out how to save this dude's ass without alerting the big wigs around him.

The movie hurtles along at full throttle, I mean this baby's stuck in 6th heading down a steep hill. I found myself literally holding my breath during some parts. And its slick, the filming is great, reminds me a bit of Oliver Stone, however this is Tony Scott and he has his own resume of style with titles like "The Fan", "Crimson Tide", "True Romance", and "The Last Boy Scout" already under his belt. Actually my favourite movie from him is the oft overlooked "The Hunger", but I'm a vampire guy and that was probably the first out-of-the-box vampire flick I'd ever seen - highly recommend that by the way.

Wrinkles does a really good job, he's still got that face tic (I'm convinced its the electrodes keeping his skin from sagging down to his knees) but other then that, he did the part by the numbers and did it well. Pitt is brilliant, the compassionate hitman who although good at what he does, keeps that sense of naivity in his character, superbly acted. The rest of the cast is a hotch potch of also rans and never wasses but they all camio fantastically, none of them did any harm to their careers, flagging or not, by the roles they've played here.

I can't emphasise how fast this films rocks along, the filming is slick, you can tell they've put some money into this, and you get a sense of art-for-art's sake here and there with the angling and zoomouts. And that thing they do when the camera swings fast and it makes a "swoosh" sound a la Bad Boys? Yeah I'm into that stuff, gives it a nice emphasis. This thing doubles as an intelligent movie as well, I mean this isn't something you'd expect to come out of Hollywood, it makes you think, makes you sit up and pay attention, you become totally emersed in the movie. And without giving the game away, this thing has the best end to an action/thriller in recent memory.

Interesting tidbit, the film got an R rating in the US citing course language, some violence and brief sexuality. The violence part I can understand, I mean its not Black Hawk Down but there's some pretty cringe-worthy moments in there. But the language, shit even I'd let my kids watch this language, I barely remember the F word being used. But the really funny thing is the "brief sexuality" - the only time that anything sexual is even implied is when Brad and Catherine (McCormack) are talking on a bed in what can only be assumed is the next morning. He's dressed, she's under the covers, I mean you don't even see them touch each other. I think there's one kiss...see I'm even hazy on that. So there you go, if you thought the US was fairly conservative, best you reassess just how much, lol.

I'm giving this 4 and a half stars, and I'm trying to find a way to give it 5, but there are a couple of thin sequences albeit brief which ruined a moment or two for me - fuckit, 4 and three quarters, this sucker rocks, go see it now!!!

Well I best go get mental with the rest of the world again. Keep in touch people, and again I'm sorry for the silence lately, I am doing my best!

Ben