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The Recruit (film)

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The Recruit
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRoger Donaldson
Written by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyStuart Dryburgh
Edited byDavid Rosenbloom
Music byKlaus Badelt
Production
companies
Distributed byBuena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release dates
  • January 25, 2003 (2003-01-25) (Febio Film Festival)
  • January 31, 2003 (2003-01-31) (United States)
Running time
115 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$46 million[1]
Box office$101.2 million[2]

The Recruit is a 2003 American spy thriller film directed by Roger Donaldson and starring Al Pacino, Colin Farrell and Bridget Moynahan. It was produced by Spyglass Entertainment in association with Epsilon Motion Pictures and Place Productions, and released by Touchstone Pictures through Buena Vista Pictures Distribution on January 31, 2003. It received mixed reviews from critics, and grossed $101 million worldwide.[3]

Plot

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While studying nonlinear cryptography at MIT, James Clayton helps to create "Spartacus", a surveillance program that can enslave any computer's audiovisual hardware. Showcasing the software at a campus job fair, James impresses a representative from Dell, and is later approached by Walter Burke, who recruits James to join the Central Intelligence Agency.

Hoping to find answers to his father's mysterious death in a plane crash in Peru years ago, James passes the initial security screenings and is bused with the rest of his class to the Farm in rural Virginia, where they undergo training as prospective CIA operatives. James develops an attraction to fellow trainee Layla and a rivalry with Zack, his competition for top of the class, while Burke eventually confirms that James's father was a spy.

During a public training exercise, James and Layla are abducted by masked assailants, and James is isolated, tortured and interrogated about the Farm and his instructors. After resisting for days, James breaks when he is told about Layla's brutal treatment, and he gives up Burke's name. The experience is revealed to be an exercise observed by the class, including Layla; James has failed and is removed from the Farm.

Burke seeks a despondent James and explains that his discharge was merely a cover story; that he has been selected as a non-official cover operative (NOC) tasked to investigate Layla, whom Burke suspects is a sleeper agent working to steal the CIA computer virus "ICE-9", which transmits via the electrical grid and could disable all electrical devices on the planet, thus behaving similarly to the particle from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle.

Under the guise of working in a low-level data-entry position at CIA headquarters, James reunites with Layla, who now works in the agency's Directorate of Science & Technology, and they begin a romantic relationship. He discovers evidence of ICE-9 on her computer, so Burke gives him a sidearm. Evading a bug planted by Layla, James witnesses her passing a message to another agent at Union Station. He follows the agent, leading to a shootout, and the man is killed in the scuffle and revealed to be Zack.

James informs Burke and offers to bring in Layla, running her off the road and confronting her at gunpoint. Layla tells James that he is not a NOC, that Zack is, and that she was officially tasked by the agency to steal ICE-9 as part of assessing their security protocols. Letting Layla go, James confronts Burke, who claims that his gun is loaded with blanks, and that Zack's death was faked. However, the gun goes off, proving that Burke is the real traitor.

Burke pursues James through an abandoned warehouse, taunting him with an explanation of his plan to manipulate James into acquiring ICE-9 for Burke to sell for $3 million, while incriminating James as a failed operative gone rogue, and declaring that James's father was never an agent. James sets up a laptop that runs Spartacus, which fails to connect but leads Burke to believe that it has successfully transmitted his confession to the agency.

Chasing James outside, Burke is met by a CIA strike team led by Farm instructor Dennis Slayne. Believing that they are there to arrest him, Burke launches into a tirade revealing his grievances against the agency, as well as his own crimes, and Slayne directs the team to target Burke instead. Realizing that he has incriminated himself, Burke raises his empty gun and is shot dead. After a tearful embrace with Layla, James is driven to headquarters for a debriefing with Slayne, who alludes that James's father was a fellow agent after all.

Cast

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Production

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Development on the film was first announced in August 1998.[4] The film was produced by Gary Barber's and Roger Birnbaum's production company Spyglass Entertainment, with financial support from Disney's Touchstone Pictures and German film financing company Epsilon Motion Pictures (which was owned by the Kirch Group at the time).[5] Filming began on December 3, 2001. It was filmed mainly in Toronto and Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada, with some landmark scenes, such as that from the Iwo Jima Memorial by the Arlington National Cemetery, shot in and around Washington, D.C. The film's working title was The Farm. James Foley was considered to direct, but was replaced by Donaldson before filming began.[6][7]

A video game adaptation was proposed by Torus Games for BAM! Entertainment,[8][9] but the game was retooled into Ice Nine before release.[10]

Reception

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Box office

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The film was released on January 31, 2003, and earned $16.3 million in its first weekend. Its final gross was $52.8 million in the United States and $48.4 million internationally, for a total of $101.2 million.[2]

Critical response

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On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 44%, based on 165 reviews, with an average rating of 5.55/10. The website's critics consensus states, "This polished thriller is engaging until it takes one twist too many into the predictable."[3] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[11] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B+ on a scale of A+ to F.[12]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review, with a B+ score. He wrote, "From the get-go, The Recruit is one of those thrillers that delights in pulling the rug out from under you, only to find another rug below that."[13]

Carla Meyer of San Francisco Chronicle gave a positive review to the film, stating, "Pacino and Farrell bring a wary curiosity to their early scenes, with Farrell displaying a palpable hunger for praise and Pacino a corresponding mastery of how to hook somebody by parceling out compliments. They're a swarthier version of Robert Redford and Brad Pitt in Spy Game–only The Recruit is more about mind games."[14]

Todd McCarthy of Variety stated, "The whole picture may be hokey, but the first part is agreeably so, the second part not. At the very least, one comes away with a new appreciation of the difficulty of interoffice romance at the CIA."[15]

Mike Clark of USA Today gave a mixed review to the film, stating, "Nothing is ever what it seems, but still, nothing's very compelling in The Recruit, a less-than-middling melodrama whose subject matter and talent never click as much as its credits portend."[16]

CIA reaction

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In 2009, the movie was reviewed by new CIA employees, who wrote that although "everyone in the Agency believes the movie is ridiculous", the movie is "entertaining", and that "all of the covert service trainees watched the film on the bus going into training" for "comic relief".[17]

According to T.J. Waters (a former Farm student), The Recruit is "a mediocre movie" in which he "recognize[s] a lot of similarities with the real Farm".[18]

References

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  1. ^ "The Recruit (2003)". The Wrap. Archived from the original on March 25, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  2. ^ a b "The Recruit (2003)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Archived from the original on November 7, 2011. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  3. ^ a b "The Recruit". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. 31 January 2003. Archived from the original on 16 October 2011. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  4. ^ "Mouse looks at Spyglass". Variety. Archived from the original on April 23, 2022. Retrieved May 27, 2024.
  5. ^ Variety, November 24, 2005: Kinowelt buys Epsilon Archived June 26, 2015, at the Wayback Machine Linked 2014-01-13
  6. ^ Fleming, Michael (August 12, 2001). "Spyglass taps 'Farm' hands". Variety. Archived from the original on April 22, 2022. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
  7. ^ Dunkley, Cathy (November 6, 2001). "Donaldson moves to 'Farm'". Variety. Archived from the original on April 22, 2022. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
  8. ^ Harris, Craig (2002-06-05). "The Recruit". IGN. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2023-08-16.
  9. ^ Harris, Craig (2002-07-31). "The Recruit". IGN. Archived from the original on 2020-08-11. Retrieved 2023-08-16.
  10. ^ "Ice Nine". IGN. 2004-03-10. Archived from the original on 2022-10-03. Retrieved 2023-08-16.
  11. ^ "The Recruit" Archived 2011-02-21 at the Wayback Machine. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  12. ^ "Find CinemaScore" (Type "Recruit" in the search box). CinemaScore. Archived from the original on January 2, 2018. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  13. ^ Gleiberman, Owen (January 15, 2003). "The Recruit Review". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on August 24, 2007. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  14. ^ Meyer, Carla (January 31, 2003). "Colin Farrell put to the test as CIA trainee in taut spy-school thriller 'The Recruit'". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on March 6, 2008. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  15. ^ McCarthy, Todd (January 20, 2003). "The Recruit Review". Variety. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  16. ^ Clark, Mike (January 30, 2003). "'Recruit' fails to follow through". USAToday.com. Archived from the original on August 8, 2010. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
  17. ^ "Studies in Intelligence Vol. 53, No. 2" (PDF). August 24, 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 26, 2011. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  18. ^ Waters, T. J. (2007). Class 11: My Story Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 978-04-52288-71-3.
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