The framework is 24 hours during which Redford must scheme, lie and deceive in order to save Pitt, who the Agency plans to sacrifice nothing must upset top-level trade talks between the U.S. Now Pitt is in a Chinese prison, captured in the act of helping Catherine McCormack escape, and it's Redford who was responsible for her being there. It stars Robert Redford as a veteran CIA spymaster, on his last day at work, and Brad Pitt as the young idealist he recruited after Vietnam. That's not so say the film is without interest. We see it less as a story than as an exercise. Oddly, although both movies have about the same running times, the slower pace of “The Tailor of Panama” makes it seem shorter than the fast pace of “Spy Game.” Scott's restless camera, with flashbacks and whooshes, resists our attention it moves so fast that things don't seem to matter so much, and because it discourages contemplation, we don't develop a stake in the material.
