The Recruit Starring Colin Farrell, Al Pacino Directed by Roger Donaldson Rated PG-13 for strong language and some violence **1/2 out of **** Stars, Movie Grade: B-

Theatrical Release: January 31, 2003
Running time: 115 minutes

by Kevin Lang

I knew what was going to happen in Touchstone Pictures' "The Recruit" before I saw the film. No. I'm not some sort of psychic. I just had the unfortunate experience of watching the film's preview, which led me to easily guess what was going to unfold. Why do studios do this? Telling almost the entire story in the preview leaves no surprises for the audience, and it makes the film far less exciting.

Directed by Roger Donaldson ("Thirteen Days," 2000), "The Recruit" revolved around a recently graduated MIT computer hotshot named James Clayton, played by Minority Report's Colin Farrell, who designed a computer program known as Spartacus. The program could pinpoint and override any broadcast signal. We met James as he was running late for a meeting at a computer show with a representative from Dell, for whom he was going to demo the program along with his fellow assistants. It was nice marketing placement for Dell, but where was that Dell kid?

Al Pacino's character, Walter Burke, was also at the show, and he later approached James at a bar where James worked, telling him that he wished to recruit James for the CIA. James was reluctant at first, claiming that he wasn't CIA material, but he decided to join in order to learn more about his father, a supposed agent who disappeared in 1990. His training began at a place called The Farm, which was a highly guarded CIA training area. It looked more like a secluded resort from the outside, but I'll assume that was its cover.

I found it a little strange that James picked up and left for the CIA without a call to his mom or to his assistants who were at the computer show with him. And I'm assuming that they were his assistants. If not, and they were fellow programmers, then they would probably be pretty upset if they missed out on a huge deal for their Spartacus program, a piece of software that I'm sure the government would eventually take control of anyway, due to its sheer power over public broadcasting.

For the first half of the movie, we watched Walter Burke train James and his fellow recruits, which included the attractive Layla, Bridget Moynahan ("The Sum Of All Fears," 2002). Their training missions included such tasks as combat training, and even picking up women in a bar, the whole time being reminded by Walter that "nothing is what it seems" and "everything is a test." Unfortunately for the film, almost everything was what it seemed. Easily concluding that real CIA training is probably not all that similar to the cinematic perspective presented in "The Recruit," I found the first hour of the film a little uneventful and slow moving.

Eventually James and Layla found themselves working at Langley. Walter assigned James to investigate Layla, a suspected mole (double agent) with ulterior motives. A romance ensued between the two, who were unsure whether to trust one another. Again, "nothing is what is seems," and the plot twists began to unravel only to conclude with what I had suspected from the beginning.

The more intense moments of "The Recruit" were filled with ridiculous dialog that often didn't fit the story. It was well executed, but when you thought about what was being said, it didn't make very much sense. Pay particular attention to Al Pacino's charcater's speech at the end of the film, which almost seemed improved.

In the end, "The Recruit" offered moments of intrigue, only to be hampered by inconsistent dialogue and an unintelligent script.

"The Recruit " Review written January 30, 2003, CTF.

Post Your Own Review or Opinion