Al Pacino has now sunken to a new low
level, which no actor ever wants to reach. He is
now carelessly picking mindless screenplays,
clichéd and predictable, that’s characters have
hardly any depth. Despite his miraculous
performance as Detective Will Dormer in
Insomnia, The Recruit, his latest
film, and Simone, a previous effort last
year, are just plain boring. The twists and the
turns that the plot takes in The Recruit
are foreshadowed by repetitive dialogue, which
makes us feel uninvolved in the entire movie.
This film has potential to work as a television
show, similar to C.S.I., but as a feature film
it falls short. I did like Colin Farrell’s
breakout performance, however. He is a definite
rising star.
The boring and simplistic plot, which
disguises itself as intelligent, is not
entertaining to watch. “Everything is a test” is
the once interesting, but rundown and overly
complicated quote, in which the entire story
lives by. Following the main character, James
Clayton (Colin Farrell), a technology-wizard,
who has developed an ingenious program. Ready to
market with Dell, Clayton is on the road to
success. Before he can do so, however, he is
recruited by Walter Burke (Al Pacino), to serve
for the C.I.A. He is sent to training school; a
tough battle between the most intelligent young
people alive. James regrets the decision of
accepting Burke’s offer, when complications
arise, and he falls in love with a double-agent.
Colin Farrell is a star in the making;
the perfect actor. Appealing in every aspect,
and popular with the ladies, Farrell is both a
sex symbol (though I wouldn’t know), and a solid
performer. His most hailed performance, however,
is yet to come. Raves from the Toronto Film
Festival lead me to believe that Farrell’s
Phone Booth will be the first good
Joel Schumacher film (it’ll be released in late
March). Delivering a better performance than the
veteran c-star, Pacino, Farrell is the only limb
that The Recruit is able to hold onto.
His character James Clayton is one of the more
intriguing geek’s I’ve seen in a recent film.
Actually believable as his character, Farrell
proves that Clayton is more than just a computer
wiz. As an actor, he exhibits that this type of
person doesn’t only shine his pocket protector
for a living. His performance is nowhere near
Oscar caliber, but is very watchable.
The direction, by Roger Donaldson (the
maker of films I’ve enjoyed in the past), is
very well done. While what’s going on onscreen
might not be very exciting, the camerawork is
interesting to watch. The last shot in the film
is simply haunting, even though the material is
still very flawed. This is an example of what
two people can do for a movie. If you were to
remove Donaldson and Farrell from the cast and
crew of The Recruit, than it would’ve
been literally nothing; a zero bucket movie.
Donaldson’s way with the video makes the entire
film crisply sharp to look at; one thing a lot
of other films are lacking. As good as they
were, this filmmaker and actor combination is
not enough to save the piece from deserving a
negative rating.
Mostly boring and overrated, The
Recruit has its moments, but doesn’t prevail
in the end. I was semi-entertained by its
content, but at other times it was just
dreadful. Pacino probably gave his worst
performance of all time, and he has grown to be
old and boring. Farrell, however, makes the
movie interesting, and holds the film together
with his great character. Donaldson’s direction
is wonderfully done as well, but could hardly be
called extravagant. I truly think that this
would be a great crime-drama for the primetime
lineup. It is just light and easy-going enough,
to make the interesting training for the C.I.A.
pleasurable to watch. For now, The Recruit
is no good. In the future, it could be easily
improved, with further developments.
-Danny, Bucket Reviews