Roger Donaldson

James Clayton is a young programmer who's spent years trying to figure out what happened to his father. He's working at a bar one night when a man who indicates he works for the CIA approaches him and hints that he has information about James' father. The man, Walter Burke, is there to recruit James to the CIA.

After initially declining the offer, James reconsiders it due to the possibility that he might learn more about what happened to his father. Then it's off to The Farm to undergo show more training as a potential CIA operative, where he soon learns that no one, not even his fellow classmates, can truly be trusted. That's just the start, however - James is eventually faced with a world filled with so much deception he can't be sure of anything.

I first saw this in theaters. When it came across my desk at work, I decided a rewatch was in order. Although I'd forgotten quite a bit of the movie, I still remembered the big twist.

My favorite part of the movie was probably the portion at The Farm, minus the brewing attraction between James and Layla. True, it was just building up to the more twisty stuff later on, but I enjoyed seeing what the trainees went through.

The action was decent and the story was nicely twisty, but I'm not surprised I forgot so much of the middle portion of the movie. This was a movie that relied a lot on Al Pacino's charm and overall great performance, as well as Colin Farrell's expressive eyebrows.

Extras:

Deleted scenes, a featurette about CIA training (I either didn't watch this or it wasn't particularly memorable), and commentary by the direct and Colin Farrell (didn't listen to this).

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

2024 movie #32. 1995. Human-alien hybrid escapes from a lab, grows into a beautiful woman and leaves a trail of corpses across LA as she searches for a mate. I really thought I'd hate it but it was entertaining, in a schlocky kind of way. #147 on Rolling Stone's top 150 SF films.

The Bank Job on DVD. After the disappointing “War,” Jason Statham rebounds nicely in this entertaining heist movie as the leader of a group of small-time London crooks given the opportunity for a big score by breaking into the safe deposit vault of a local bank. Watching the gang prepare for and execute the robbery is only the beginning of their adventure as they soon discover that the owners of the boxes include the city’s largest porn producer and his friends, a high-class madam and show more a vengeful black militant, both of whom kept their sensitive blackmail material protected in the bank. In addition to being hunted by the legitimate police, the gang must find a way to placate the even more dangerous criminals, the crooked cops on their payrolls and the government agents seeking to keep hidden the contents of the boxes and silence anyone who knows their secrets. It’s a complex puzzle that maintains a good balance between action, humor, violence and mystery. The fighting skills that Statham has displayed in his previous work are shown briefly in the one fight scene, but are hardly missed and would have been out of place as the problems his character faces require more thoughtful resolutions.
Based loosely on a true story from the 1970s, I was surprised that the DVD did not include at least a short piece on what really happened or what the producers think happened. All of the London papers, including the Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Mirror, had stories on the robbery when the film was released.

For all my book and movie reviews, please visit my blog at http://unsetalarmclock.wordpress.com/ show less

2022 movie #222. 2003. Clayton (Farrell) is recruited by old-hand Burke (Pacino) to the CIA. His 1st assignment is to root out a mole. But as he learned at "The Farm" (CIA training center), everything is not as it seems and everyone lies. Pretty good thriller.