The Recruit
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encyclopedia
For other uses, see The Recruit
(disambiguation).
The Recruit
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by
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Produced by
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Jeff
Apple
Gary Barber Roger Birnbaum |
Written by
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Roger
Towne
Kurt Wimmer Mitch Glazer |
Starring
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Music by
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Cinematography
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Edited by
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Production
company |
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Distributed by
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Release dates
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Running time
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115
minutes
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Country
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United
States
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Language
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English
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Box office
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$101.2
million[1]
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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 Epsilon
Motion Pictures and released in North America by Touchstone Pictures
on January 31, 2003, receiving mixed reviews from critics.[2] The film's tagline is: "In the
C.I.A. nothing is what it seems."
Contents
Plot
James Clayton (Colin Farrell), a computer programming expert at MIT,
is offered an interview by senior Central
Intelligence Agency instructor Walter Burke (Al Pacino) for a position with the Agency. After
witnessing a demonstration of Clayton's skills, Burke tests Clayton with a
puzzle encoded on the sports page of a newspaper. Clayton agrees to be
recruited because he wants information about his missing father, whom he
suspects was a CIA agent.
After passing numerous psychometric, psychoanalytic, aptitudinal, and polygraphic tests, Clayton is taken to The Farm, a CIA training facility. There, Burke
and other instructors teach the candidates the skill sets of espionage, covert
operation protocols, and intelligence gathering techniques. During a
surveillance exercise, Clayton and fellow recruit Layla Moore (Bridget Moynahan) are kidnapped by men apparently
from a foreign intelligence service.
Clayton is tortured in a cell for several days but refuses to give up the names
of his instructors. When the interrogators threaten to hurt Layla, Clayton
gives in. The rear wall of the cell opens to reveal Burke, Layla, and the other
recruits sitting in a lecture theater, having witnessed the whole event, which
was a set-up.
Clayton is cut from the program, but
Burke arrives at his hotel room and claims that the dismissal itself was
staged, and that Clayton has become a non-official cover
(NOC), the most exclusive operative. Clayton's first mission is to spy on
Layla, whom Burke suspects is a mole, and who is trying to steal a computer
virus from the headquarters. Burke gives Clayton a low-level desk job at the
headquarters so he can get close to Layla. Clayton finds proof that Layla is
removing the virus piece by piece using a USB flash drive.
Clayton watches Layla as she
secretly passes a note to her contact, and follows the contact through Union Station.
After a brief scuffle, Clayton kills him and discovers that he was Zack (Gabriel Macht), a fellow recruit back at The
Farm. When Clayton confronts Layla, she cries and protests that it was a
security exercise, and that Zack was a NOC. Torn between two conflicting
statements, Clayton decides to suspect Burke and trust Layla, believing her
show of emotion to be genuine.
Clayton reports back to Burke, who
congratulates Clayton on passing the final test. Clayton responds by demanding
to know why Zack was killed, but Burke replies that Clayton's gun was loaded
with blanks, and that
Zack's death was a ruse. However, Clayton tries to fire his gun, Burke deflects
and shoots the rear window instead, proving that Burke is lying. Burke chases
Clayton through an abandoned ware-house, and boasts that he organized the
scheme to sell the virus for $3 million.
Clayton pretends that he was
broadcasting Burke's speech to the CIA. When the CIA comes to arrest Clayton
for Zack's death, Burke rails about his dissatisfaction with his career. The
CIA agents conclude that Burke is the real target. When Burke realizes that he
incriminated himself, he draws his gun, forcing the CIA to shoot and kill him. Layla
consoles Clayton before he rides back with the CIA agents for debriefing. In
the van, Assistant Director of Operations Dennis Slayne (Karl Pruner) makes a comment suggesting that
Clayton's father was a NOC agent when he died, and Clayton now realizes that
some of Burke's statements had in fact been true.
Main cast
- Al Pacino as Walter Burke
- Colin Farrell as James Douglas Clayton
- Bridget Moynahan as Layla Moore
- Gabriel Macht as Zack
- Kenneth Mitchell as Alan
- Karl Pruner as Dennis Slayne
Production
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).[3] It was mainly filmed 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.
Reception
Critical response
Reviews of the film were mixed.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 43%
based on 163 reviews with, an average rating of 5.5 out of 10. The site's
consensus states: "This polished thriller is engaging until it takes one
twist too many into the predictable."[2] Metacritic gave it an average score of 56 out of
100 from the 36 reviews it collected.[4]
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."[5] Carla Meyer of San Francisco
Chronicle also 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."[6]
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 inner-office romance at the CIA."[7] 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."[8]
Box office
The film was released on January 31,
2003, and earned $16,302,063 in its first weekend. Its final gross is
$52,802,140 in the United States and $48,389,744 internationally, for a total
of $101,191,884.[1]
References
1.
· "The
Recruit (2003)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb.
Retrieved October 14, 2011.
· ·
Gleiberman, Owen (January 15, 2003). "The Recruit Review". Entertainment Weekly.
Retrieved October 14, 2011.
· ·
Meyer, Carla (January 31, 2003). "Colin Farrell put to the test as CIA trainee in taut
spy-school thriller 'The Recruit'". San Francisco
Chronicle. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
8. ·
Clark, Mike (January 30, 2003). "'Recruit' fails to follow through".
USAToday.com. Retrieved October 14, 2011.
External links
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