Great Cold War Spy Story

Rating: 10/10 (11 February 2007)

An introspective narrative of the day to day life of a high ranking member of the CIA.
This is not James Bond; and if you expect that, like most of the rest of the reviewers here evidently did, you're going to be disappointed.
Real intelligence gathering isn't Aston Martin driving and Babe chasing. It's about thousands of people who sit days and nights listening to foreign language tapes for key words, hoping the sequences and meanings of those words can be interpreted in such a way as to confirm them as being our adversary's responses to our own sequence of signs; given to trigger those responses and thereby divulge things that were unknown about them or their own intelligence gathering, or who they are and how and what they're doing.
The only times anything exciting happens are when someone from one side or the other flips, and many times that's the only clue you have that your whole operation has been compromised and you, your family, loved ones or your nation are in mortal danger.
If you want to know about the temptation, personal detachment and the degree of secrecy required to do this duty, you'll probably love this movie.
If you're still drawn to the clock-like James Bond Action Hero format (*yawn* "They're in the control room. Must be going to end in fifteen minutes..."), then you'll probably be very bored with this. Some people are drawn to on screen gasoline explosions like moths to flames.
I'll admit: I purposely avoid movies like that. They give me nothing I can use once I leave the theater. I need stories, ideas and characters I can think about. I need irony. I need things that aren't that easy to figure out, like things in my own life or the lives of people I know.
I can understand why some people don't like this movie. The plot is very complicated and we like our movies simple and straightforward.
Conversely, our president is George Bush and most Americans probably believe he's an honest man. Most Americans today probably don't question the story of Al Qaida and the WTC or whether Iraq threatened Saudi Arabia before the first Gulf War or whether the Soviets were a true threat to the US during the Cold War.
However, this story unwinds in such a way as to make you think like the characters in it. You realize how little you know and by realizing that, you learn. You may not get all of it as it goes along, but you will understand it's message when it's done.
It shows but doesn't tell. It's as much "high art" as any film ever gets.