“Enemy Of The State” (1998)
If one needs a primer on the Tony Scott handbook, look no further than “Enemy of the State,” his frenzied, fabulously entertaining 1998 thriller that marks a career highlight for leading man Will Smith, as well as one of the legendary Gene Hackman’s last memorable performances. The film opens as many spy pictures before it have, with frowning bureaucrats discussing shadowy secrets in a public park somewhere in Washington D.C. A couple dead bodies and a case of mistaken identity later, and we are rolling, baby. Many spy flicks like to take their time, operating at a leisurely pace so that the audience can properly absorb the procedural elements of the plot. Scott didn’t believe in leisure. He also didn’t believe in restraint, subtlety or boredom, apparently. “Enemy of the State” moves at such a blistering pace, rip-roaring through its kinetic set pieces (including one of the more memorable car chases this side of “Ronin”) that at times, it’s hard to keep up. The two lead performances keep us grounded, though, and Scott’s superb, stylish eye keeps us captivated, even when the plot doesn’t make a lick of sense.
“Eye Of The Needle” (1981)
In Richard Marquand‘s taut espionage thriller, Donald Sutherland is Heinrich “Needle” Faber, a German spy who is deep undercover on British soil in the twilight months of WWII, on the verge of providing the Nazis with invaluable D-Day intel. He’s also, fascinatingly enough, the film’s leading man. Faber makes good on his nickname and skewers about a dozen men (and one woman) with the pointy end before capsizing on the shores of a remote British island. He crawls to the doorstep of an unhappily married couple, where lonely wife, Lucy (Kate Nelligan), and embittered paraplegic husband, David (Christopher Cazenove), take him in. At this point the oddly-paced first half becomes a gripping domestic thriller, with Sutherland all malice and no remorse, as the stony-eyed spook who is extremely good at what he does, but who genuinely seems to fall for Lucy. Supported by 007 cinematographer Alan Hume and a couple of unnerving performances from Sutherland and Nelligan, Marquand directs “Eye of the Needle” with gathering briskness, till it’s an edge-of-your-seat spy picture — it’s often overlooked, but only by those who’ve never seen it.
“The Fourth Protocol” (1987)
Starring future Bond Pierce Brosnan and former Harry Palmer Michael Caine, based on a Frederick Forsythe novel, this film is a super-spy team-up even before you discover it was directed by John Mackenzie, who had “The Long Good Friday” and Graham Greene‘s “The Honorary Consul,” also with Caine, already under his belt. That pedigree is undoubtedly there, but the story, of Brosnan’s KGB agent attempting to assemble an atomic bomb on British soil so as to blow up a US base, while Caine’s dogged MI5 agent tries to intercept him, is delivered with such restraint as to dally with dullness at times. Joanna Cassidy enlivens things briefly as another Russian spy, while the opposite-number spymasters (the snooty Ian Richardson and Julian Glover for the Brits, Ned Beatty and Ray McAnally for the Soviets) spark a little behind-the curtain intrigue, but what was maybe a refreshingly gritty and plausible corrective to the slicker, more fantasy-based spy thrillers of the day, feels a little bogged-down by today’s standards.
“Hopscotch” (1980)
A shaggy, amiable, low-key comedy starring Walter Matthau as Kendig, a spy so charming we overlook the fact that the whole film is him blowing the whistle on all his covert operations due to pique at being sidelined by his CIA boss (human baby oil bottle Ned Beatty), “Hopscotch” is a breezy delight. Directed by the underrated Ronald Neame (“The Poseidon Adventure,” “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie“), and co starring Glenda Jackson as the widow and ex-British agent with whom Kendig has an ongoing “thing,” the film is less an international espionage story than a one-last-job caper movie, in which we get the genuine pleasure of watching Matthau outwit everyone and remain several steps ahead of the bumbling and/or reluctant agents sent to stop him. Beatty is reliably terrific, and Jackson a strong, self-sufficient foil, but even better is Sam Waterston‘s lovely, amused turn as Kendig’s CIA protege, who despite being sent to find and ultimately kill his old mentor, simply cannot bring himself to dislike him.
“The Hunt For Red October” (1990) — Jack Ryan
An unusual franchise in that Jack Ryan has been played by four actors in five films (only Harrison Ford pulled a double, on series second-best “Patriot Games” and the inferior “Clear and Present Danger”), for our money the best of the Tom Clancy adaptations is still the first, “The Hunt for Red October.” Starring Alec Baldwin as Ryan and Sean Connery as a defecting Soviet submarine captain, the film’s tension and excitement is undoubtedly down to its director, John McTiernan, who made this film immediately after “Predator” and “Die Hard,” so it completes the action fan’s equivalent of Bergman’s “Silence of God” trilogy. That said, it’s more thoughtful and talky than action-based, and showed that McTiernan knew how to bring cat-and-mouse dialogue to life too, and that cinematographer Jan De Bont had a great command of ratcheting up the tension in enclosed spaces. It may fall some way short of the 70s paranoia thrillers that its low-key approach emulates, but it’s about a hundred times better than the turgid “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” that was the last go-round.
Hey, this isn\’t exactly a spy flick, but I recall seeing something on the Fleet circuit out in Taiwan in the mid-sixties that involved the Germans rounding up some 300 hostages after the resistance somewhere in occupied Europe assassinate a general with a bomb dropped from a clock tower. The perpetrator, the town doctor, is torn between the need to preserve cell security and his guilt at seeing the innocents lined up in the town square awaiting certain execution at a set time, and even more people turning themselves in as the bomber to cover for the resistance. At the climax, he is on his way to turn himself in and is gunned down by the resistance, fearful that he will be tortured and spill the beans on their cell when he is arrested. . . and immediately after that, the Germans mow down the hostages with machine guns. Black and white, European production with dubbed dialogue, and I think distributed by MGM. I thought it was called "The 300 Hostages" but I can\’t find that title anywhere. Anyone have any clues? It was a thriller with a dark side for sure.
Definitely should have included Austin Powers and a more worthy Bond movie.
Agree with Ed Behan. Alec Guines\’Smiley is joy to watch until today (Bernard Hepton and Ian Richardson too, actually)…and Gary Oldman should\’ve win the Oscar, period!
Well, we seem focused on movies here, but there were two classic mini-series done on British TV which showed up later on PBS that were quite worthwhile: The Alec Guinness versions of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and "Smiley\’s People" from the Le Carre novels. Guinness nailed Smiley so well that Le Carre quit writing Smiley novels, saying that Smiley was "his bloke now. . ." As ringing an endorsement of the late great Alec Guinness as you could ask for.
More recently, there was the Worricker Trilogy written and directed by David Hare and starring Bill Nighy as world-weary but honorable MI-5 agent. An incredible supporting cast across the board.
And it\’s off topic as a spy novel, but John Frankenheimer\’s "The Train" was mentioned in your write up of "The Manchurian Candidate" and it\’s a neat and stirring epic of German skullduggery, the French resistance, art, and the class struggle. . .
and they wreck a bunch of trains real good.
Where Eagles Dare.
I have to respectfully disagree regarding the Jack Ryan movies – I think Clear and Present Danger is a smarter and more enjoyable movie than Patriot Games which just seems twee and clunky by comparison.
The criminally underrated Spartan deserve to be on that list.