Spy Game opens in 1991. On the very same day that Nathan Muir (Redford) is to retire from the Central Intelligence Agency, his one-time protégé Tom Bishop (Pitt) is captured and detained in a Chinese prison. Captured while trying to free a prisoner, Bishop is to be executed within 24 hours.

Instead of having a relaxing last day at the office, Muir is instead treated to an all-day interrogation about Bishop from the boys at Langley: how he first met Tom in Vietnam, his recruitment of Bishop in West Berlin and the assignment they both worked on in Beirut, Lebanon.

Here, the two had a falling-out that involved a woman Bishop fell for, a relief worker named Elizabeth Handley (Catherine McCormack). In between his periods of interrogation, Muir manages to slip out of the room and dart around CIA headquarters in an effort to get Bishop released from the prison alive.

An interesting premise, to be sure. But in the hands of screenwriters Michael Frost Beckner, David Arata and director Tony Scott, the potential to have an involving, exciting espionage drama is shot to hell within the first twenty minutes. Scott provides his usual audio/visual pyrotechnics, which make us numb to the convoluted script.

Pitt and Redford try to use their onscreen charisma to make their characters seem more than the clichés they ultimately are (Muir being the Wise Old spy and Bishop, the Arrogant Young Gun), but it is to no avail. The silly dialogue, overstuffed story (yes, sometimes movies can have too many things going on for its own good) and underdeveloped characters bestowed upon them by Beckner and Arata can only take them so far.

Scott's non-stop camera movement, inability to create dramatic tension (his use of a 'ticking clock' scenario is unintentionally funny) and non-stop use of a thunderous music score (by Harry Gregson-Williams) only makes matters worse. Add to that music-video style editing by Christian Wagner and you have Three Days Of The Condor for the Short Attention Span Generation, one that plods along thanks not to an involving story but a musical tempo.

Perhaps in the hands of Oliver Stone, Steven Soderbergh or even Tony Scott's brother, Ridley, Spy Game may have been able to overcome its script's shortcomings to become something along the lines of the Jack Ryan films: a fun popcorn flick with signs of intelligent life. In the hands of Tony Scott however, the signs are nowhere to be found and the popcorn is downright stale.

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