BEFORE: It's Big Movie #700, and the end of the spy-films chain, and the end of November as well. I'm still one day ahead on the numbers (365 + 334 = 699), so that means I've got a free day coming up, which I should use for Christmas shopping. What I WANT to do is to lay out a rough movie schedule for 2011 - which would take me up to Movie #1000, but I'll try to hold off on that until Christmas cards go out, the outdoor lights get hung, and some serious cyber-shopping takes place - otherwise those things just won't happen, and I'll have to explain to my family why there are no gifts from me under the tree. Yes, the "O" in OCD stands for obsessive - though I prefer to state that I have CDO (Compulsive Desire to Organize?) which has the extra advantage of the three letters being in proper alphabetical order.
THE PLOT: A bookish CIA researcher finds all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust.
AFTER: Now THIS is what Redford looked like in 1975 - even the glasses, the jacket with elbow patches and the 5-o'clock shadow can't hide his rugged good looks. Jeez, I'm 100% straight but Redford was truly blessed...no wonder my ex had a Redford obsession...
Redford plays Joseph Turner (code name: Condor), a CIA analyst (bookworm/nerd) who's forced to become a man of action after an attack on the CIA's secret NYC brownstone computer lab.
The 1970's were a strange time in New York, when a man could (apparently) kidnap a woman at gunpoint, say he worked for the CIA and that his life was in danger, then force her to take him back to her apartment, where he would tie her up. And you just know that they'd bond on a personal level, and he'd totally be shagging her by the end of the night...you mean that would actually WORK? Bear in mind, this was a New York City when there was actually a New York Times office in Times Square, Bell Telephone vans roamed the streets, New York City had ONE area code, and even the CIA had really crappy CRT monitors and dot-matrix printers. Plus this was back when police actually responded to the sound of gunplay - how quaint!
And the CIA (apparently) had an office in the World Trade Center - now that explains a lot (maybe?). A couple of scenes were shot in the WTC lobby (yep, still stings...) and in the streets around there, Fulton and Cedar and Liberty Streets, which is a neighborhood I know very well. As an added bonus, it seemed to be early in the Christmas season when this film was shot, perhaps even late November? Another bonus - it rained today in New York. Like the Condor says, "I can't remember yesterday, but I know it rained today..."
I like how Condor accidentally stumbled onto the root cause of the major wars coming up in the next few decades (ah, ah, that would be telling...) - that alone makes this film seem really ahead of its time. But even though Condor works for the CIA, this is still another spin on the "Ordinary Guy gets caught up in spy stuff" plot.
Perhaps this should have been movie #699, and I should have made "Spy Game" #700 - that was a bigger, bolder, more realistic (?) film - I didn't buy all the code-word mumbo-jumbo that Redford's character used in this film. But hindsight is 20/20 - anyway I had thought this film was more about political sniper assassinations - I guess maybe I confused it with "The Day of the Jackal"?
One of the older spies in this film waxes nostalgic about the "clarity" of war - and that's exactly what's coming up in the next few weeks - films about war, where it's a lot easier to tell who the "bad guys" are since they work for other countries, and not mysterious shadow agencies.
Also starring Faye Dunaway (last seen in "Chinatown"), Cliff Robertson, Max Von Sydow (always a favorite, last seen in "The Wolfman"), and John Houseman (last seen in "Bright Lights, Big City").
RATING: 6 out of 10 unmarked packages
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