Spy Game
2001 · 126 min
Directed by Tony Scott. Written by David Arata, Michael Frost Beckner. Photographed by Daniel Mindel. Starring Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack, Stephen Dillane.
On the day of his retirement, a veteran CIA agent learns that his former protégé has been arrested in China, is sentenced to die the next morning in Beijing, and that the CIA is considering letting that happen to avoid an international scandal.
Critics 65% · audiences 75% · streaming on Fawesome · $62 million in the US and Canada on its first run · $81 million elsewhere · about 11 million tickets sold, 3.9% of the country
What they said about Spy Game
- 2001
It is not a bad movie, mind you; it's clever and shows great control of craft, but it doesn't care, and so it's hard for us to care about.
— Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times - 2001
if you can't find a copy of Condor, you can learn everything you probably need to know about espionage by pairing Spy Game with Spy Kids.
— Mike Clark, USA Today - 2001
fans of swooping helicopter shots, alleys filled with backlit geysers of steam, and jump-cut editing that makes MTV look like Ingmar Bergman will relish the intercontinental intrigue and huggermugger that is Spy Game.
— Steven Rea, The Philadelphia Inquirer - 2001
the problem lies in the calculating pretentiousness of using human misery to make shallow entertainment seem serious. It's worth comparing Spy Game with The Tailor of Panama, John Boorman's far superior exercise in post-cold-war spycraft.
— Dana Stevens, The New York Times
How it got made
An American–French–German–Japanese co-production, it was shot in Morocco and Budapest from November 5, 2000, to March 19, 2001. The film was originally to be directed by Mike van Diem. Brad Pitt passed on playing the title role in The Bourne Identity for this project. It made its worldwide premiere at the Mann National Theatre on November 19, 2001.
At the box office
Spy Game grossed $62.4 million in the United States and Canada and $80.7 million in international markets, for a worldwide total of $143 million against a production budget of $115 million. The film opened at number three at the North American box office behind Monsters, Inc. and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, earning $21.6 million during its opening weekend, combined with $30.6 million from its first five days. It remained in the domestic top ten for five consecutive weeks.