In Spy Game, directed by Tony Scott, agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) work at cross purposes to undermine one another and thus the effectiveness of the agency. Retiring Special Agent Nathan Muir (played by Robert Redford) hears that his onetime protégée Tom Bishop (played by Brat Pitt) has been captured by authorities in China and is scheduled to be executed for the crime of espionage in twenty-four hours. The capture occurs because Bishop tries to rescue his girlfriend Elizabeth Hadley (played by Catherine McCormack) from a Chinese prison, but the attempt is foiled, and Bishop is caught and later tortured. Muir is called into a high-level situation room to provide details on Bishop, whose unauthorized and unsuccessful rescue attempt has evidently so complicated trade negotiations between China and the United States that the visit of the American president to China might be jeopardized. Muir then tells of his history of working alongside Bishop, from an assassination of a Vietnamese leader to an assassination attempt of a terrorist in Beirut, where the two fell out over Bishop’s relationship with Elizabeth. Such gossip can hardly be useful to CIA bigwigs, yet they let him chatter on garrulously about his personal life. However, while in the situation room, Muir tries to find out about the larger gameplan; when his efforts are spurned, he puts two and two together and attempts to arrange a covert, unauthorized back-channel rescue of Bishop and Elizabeth. The complex history and rescue effort display total ignorance that the CIA has not undertaken secret missions of the sort described since the Church Committee report in the late 1960s. Moreover, the implausibility of the two-helicopter rescue on the China mainland is compounded by the incredulousness of Muir’s effort to cash in his life savings of $282,000 to bribe Chinese officials in order to allow Bishop to be rescued despite their animosity. What will Muir do, now that he has retired without a nest-egg? How will Bishop show his gratitude? A gay filmviewer may perhaps surmise the answers to both questions, but who else will? M