By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * )
This must have been a spooky job for Brad Pitt. There he is, on the shoot for a few months, and every morning when he goes to work, what does he see?
The face of a pretty blond actor, now 64 and crevassed.
His own face in 30 years? The career of a superstar, a Hollywood legend, now reduced to playing the older guy in potboilers. His own career in 30 years? The husband of a ... let's stop the comparison there and talk about the movie.
Robert Redford is a CIA veteran on his last day at work (oh, that old plot device again). Pitt, an agent he recruited, is in prison in China because he was caught while helping the Female Interest (Catherine McCormack) to escape after Redford sent her there.
So, Redford has 24 hours to scheme, lie and save Pitt. The Secretary has disavowed all knowledge of Pitt's actions because nothing must upset an important trade summit between the US and China.
Flashbacks show Redford meeting Pitt in Vietnam about 1965 and using him in Berlin, Beirut and Hong Kong until 1991 (stressfull times, and Pitt doesn't age at all). Pitt meets McCormack in Beirut, where she is a nurse and maybe something more, and they fall in love.
Like his older brother Ridley, director Tony Scott spent years making ads in Britain, then went to Hollywood and directed wham-bam movies for Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson, starting with Top Gun.
So you know to expect pounding music, quick cuts and bad driving habits. Expect no more than that and you'll enjoy.
Rental video, DVD: Today
• DVD features: movie (115min); commentary with Scott; commentary with producers Marc Abraham and Douglas Wick; Clandestine OPS feature; deleted scenes, including alternate ending; script-to-storyboard feature; Requirements For CIA Acceptance feature.
