Spy Game

2001
R
2h 6m

IMDb RATING

7.1/10

170K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

2,302

416

Brad Pitt and Robert Redford in Spy Game (2001)

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Watch Spy Game: About To Get Benched

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89 Photos

Spy Action Crime Thriller

Retiring CIA agent Nathan Muir recalls his training of Tom Bishop while working against agency politics to free him from his Chinese captors.Retiring CIA agent Nathan Muir recalls his training of Tom Bishop while working against agency politics to free him from his Chinese captors.Retiring CIA agent Nathan Muir recalls his training of Tom Bishop while working against agency politics to free him from his Chinese captors.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.1/10

170K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

2,302

416

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 3 nominations

Videos7

Clip 0:42

Watch Spy Game: About To Get Benched

Clip 0:58

Watch Spy Game: You're Going To Miss It

Clip 0:37

Watch Spy Game: Where'd You Learn To Shoot

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Watch Spy Game: I Never Said He Was A She

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Watch Spy Game: Happy Birthday Nathan

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Watch Spy Game: You'd Be Working With Me

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Watch Spy Game: B-Roll

Photos89

+ 83

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Tony Scott asked for more money to film the rooftop scene in "Berlin" (in order to rent a helicopter for an aerial scene) but the producers refused. Scott believed that the scene was important and rented the helicopter with his own money.

Goofs
When Duncan is negotiating with Deng, he clearly tells Muir "Deng wants five-hundred-thousand YUAN for the power out in Su Chou." In 1991, this would have been about $95,500 U.S. dollars, so when Muir counter-offers and says "No way. Tell him $100K and I'll pay him in dollars," he is offering more than Deng asked for. The final price, $282,000USD, would have been approximately 1,500,000 yuan in 1991.

Quotes
Nathan Muir: [inside a CIA briefing room] When I was a kid I used to spend summers on my uncle's farm. And he had this plow horse he used to work with everyday. He really loved that plow horse. One summer she came up lame. It could barely stand. The vet offered to put her down. You know what my uncle said?
Charles Harker: [inside a CIA briefing room] No, Muir, what did he say?
Nathan Muir: [inside a CIA briefing room] He said, why would I ask somebody else to kill a horse that belonged to me?

Crazy credits
In the opening credits, many of the credits are each preceded by a jumble of letters flickering on the screen. This may be a reference to the opening credit sequence of one of Robert Redford's earlier spy movies, Sneakers (1992).

Connections
Featured in The Making of 'Spy Game' (2001)

Soundtracks
Rocky Mountain Way
Written by Rocke Grace, Kenny Passarelli (as Ken Passarelli), Joe Vitale (as Joey Vitale), Joe Walsh
Performed by Joe Walsh
Courtesy of MCA Records
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

User reviews438

Review

Featured review

7/10

Maybe a little far-fetched, but clever.

Spy Game will probably never be considered among the best spy movies to come out of Hollywood, however, it is a really entertaining movie with quite a few surprises.

The movie is set in the early 1990's. Nathan Muir (Redford) is a retiring CIA officer who learns that his former protégé Tom Bishop (Pitt) has been captured while attempting a prison rescue in China and will be executed shortly. CIA brass want to know what motivated Bishop to attempt this unauthorized action and they interview Muir to find out. Muir tells the story of how he met and trained Bishop: from Vietnam to Berlin to Beirut. While Muir is setting the background, he is also working secretly behind the scenes to free Bishop. Will Muir's cloak and dagger antics be discovered before he has a chance to free Bishop? Overall the movie is not as good as other spy genre films such as Three Days of the Condor, Spy Who Came in From the Cold, or Hunt for Red October. I think Redford does well in the role of the retiring, slightly jaded CIA officer Muir. Pitt does well with what he's given, though I think his character suffers from poor writing, especially near the end of the film. Think of Spy Game as a more sophisticated Mission: Impossible (that's no knock on M:I) and you'll be pleasantly surprised.