Last day at the office of a retiring Company man, or CIA agent to you laymen, Robert Redford. He has just learned that his prize protégé, Brad Pitt, has gotten himself arrested on an unauthorized mission in China, and is scheduled for execution in twenty-four hours. His superiors, mindful of delicate trade negotiations, seem willing to look the other way. The main area of interest in this so-called "game" (an indicator of Smiley cynicism instead of Bond idealism) is the limitation of the playing field to CIA headquarters: the long-distance string-pulling, the circumvention of official channels, the concealment of activities from the higher-ups, the whole cat-and-mouse chase through the bureaucratic labyrinth. That's not to say the movie observes the classical unities of time (twenty-four hours), place (CIA headquarters), and action (the covert rescue operation). It's to say it could have observed them. What weakens this area of interest -- what shoots holes in the three unities -- is the flashback structure that gives rise to a kind of career highlight reel on the Protégé (as his mentor selectively fills in his bosses on the deep background). The highlights, while naturally low in suspense, provide some action for action's sake. Or action, anyway, for the trailer's sake. Action for bringing-in-the-suckers' sake. The highlights fail, however, to supply any reason why the old-timer would go to such lengths to bail out his understudy (when he had expressly told him, under similar circumstances, that he wouldn't). We are forced to fall back on the physical likeness of Redford to Pitt, and the fact that Pitt had in essence already played Redford in A River Runs through It, fueling speculation on a sort of familial blood tie or at least maybe a fraternal bond between fellow matinee idols. Stephen Dillane, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Catherine McCormack; directed by Tony Scott. (2001) — Duncan Shepherd