Movie Review: The Recruit

Hollywood insiders say Irish actor Colin Farrell reminds them of a young Al Pacino. Well, they can put their money where their mouths are this weekend by watching the two talented actors in the CIA thriller The Recruit.

James Clayton (Colin Farrell), an MIT-trained computer wizard, is recruited by veteran CIA officer Walter Burke (Al Pacino) to become an agent-in-training at the Farm, a kind of mind-tinkering boot camp facility where big brother is always watching you. The young man hopes to verify that his own dad, who disappeared years ago, was a CIA operative. Clayton and other trainees, including Layla (Bridget Moynahan) with whom he falls in love, learn to parachute into enemy territory, plant bugs and bombs and withstand various mind-bending games and physical interrogations.

Walter tells them constantly that ''nothing is what it seems.'' James and cohorts never know when they are being tested, who is really who and if there's a set-up or a real deadly game afoot. There is a computer program under wraps at CIA headquarters that would destroy the Internet. After washing out of the agent training program, Clayton gets assigned to a low-level office job so that he can monitor an attempt to steal the program and perhaps track down the villains who are trying to steal the program......or is this all CIA bullshit?

The Recruit, once called The Farm after the weird, bucolic CIA training facility, is a kind of old-fashioned CIA thriller like the Robert Redford classic Three Days of the Condor (haven't seen it? Rent it). A talented guy with ambition and a yen to learn if his dad really was CIA, is brought to a weird training camp where recruits sit in high tech classrooms like students at Hogwarts except when they screw up...they get tortured (just to see if they can hold up until duress of course). None of this training may be true although it's very interesting and well-researched with CIA advisors.

Al Pacino is in yet another mentor role but he's so darn good at it! He telegraphs some of the twists in the film (and there are tons) by saying "nothing is what it seems" and "trust no one" constantly so you know not to believe anything the film is setting up for you. Colin Farrell is excellent as the confused and ambitious young man entering a very strange land and holds his own with Pacino quite well. His attraction and affair with fellow trainee Layla played with honor and spunk by Sum of All Fear's Bridget Moynahan, is pretty hot and believable. And guessing who is who and what is what is a lot of fun.

Once the spies are trained and off to Langley they do some silly things like talk on cell phones that anybody could listen to and steal stuff out of offices while the other person is at lunch, etc. And the end, featuring Pacino is pretty hammy but overall, this spy thriller definitely keeps you awake and interested! Good for a date flick as well..

For good acting, hot Colin and fun twists, 4 out of 5 stars.

***

Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.