The Recruit (2003)

• Review: *** (out of ****)
• Starring: Al Pacino, Colin Farrell, Bridget Moynahan, Gabriel Macht, Mike Realba, Dom Fiore, Kenneth Mitchell, Karl Pruner, Ron Lea
• Director: Roger Donaldson
• Screenplay: Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer, Mitch Glazer
• Length: 115 min.
• MPAA Rating: PG-13 (For violence, sexuality and language)

The best and brightest areselected to serve the United States as an agent in the CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA). The Recruit gives us a glimpse at thetraining process and the potential corruption inherent in new recruits.

Colin Farrell is JamesClayton, a bartender whose scholastic talents gain the attention ofWalter Burke (Al Pacino) who is known for choosing excellent recruitsfor his training compound. Another factor plays into Clayton'sselection: his father was a CIA agent whose mysterious disappearancehas never been explained, at least to his family. Clayton at firstspurns the request, but after a brief conversation with Burke, whohints he knows James' father's fate, Clayton decides to join the CIA.

Throughout training, heattempts to uncover his father's ultimate doom but never gets hisquestions answered. There he also falls in love with a woman he's laterinstructed to follow as a secret agent. Layla (Bridget Moynahan) is, onnumerous occasions, the target of Clayton's romantic interests. Duringa training session where the men are instructed to pick up women at abar, she purports herself as having been terminated from the programand seduces him into taking her home. As it turns out, she was given asimilar instruction and because she succeeded, he failed. This causes adistinct rift between the two that is temporarily repaired during aseparate training encounter and later through his pursuit of her as anenemy agent.

The screenplay by scribesRoger Towne, Kurt Wimmer and Mitch Glazer is fairly predictable withpreviews giving too much information to the audience. The characters are archetypal for the genre, but Moynahan and Farrell improve on thestereotype with their good performances. Farrell has the seductivelooks and disgruntled attitude that help convince the viewer of hischaracter's situation. Moynahan has a similar style and together theycreate a chemistry that lends to their opposites attract style loveaffair. Pacino, on the other hand, gives a performance similar to manyof his others. He plays a loud, argumentative and domineering characterwhose intentions are barely hidden and whose actions are blatant.

Director Roger Donaldsontackles a traditional genre with traditional storytelling techniques.His technical as well as emotional direction is limited at best,focusing on car chases, intrigue and a lack of originality not evidentin the screenplay. While his directing style doesn't destroy the movie,it throws in a few roadblocks that cause some of the film's weakerelements. With Pacino's on-screen performance and Donaldson'soff-screen assistance, The Recruit lacks the ultimate quality thatmake other movies great.

Any audience who enjoysmovies focusing around modern espionage who tire of the glamorous Bondstyle will enjoy The Recruit. The situations are traditional, but thedirection is fresh and original. A modern tale always lends itself wellto a time of mistrust and doubt as it capitalizes on the general fearsof a nation preparing for war. Here, we have an example of the uniquebonding experience felt by moviegoers who desire to escape the realitythey live in with a movie whose reality, while fictional, could trulyexist.

-Wesley Lovell (May 13, 2003)