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Genre: Spy Story (True Story)
Time: 2 Hours, 10 minutes
Platform: Amazon Prime (on rent)
As the adage goes, the more you try to change something, the more things remain the same. Hollywood (and Bollywood) tries to convince us that “spies” wear nice suits, drive cool cars, bed beautiful women, and generally blow up something. The 1985 James Bond movie A View to a Kill tried to prove it with the same formulaic chase and explosions.
Time and again, this has been proved to be utter nonsense as shown by real-world spy stories.
Many observers called 1985 The Year of the Spy as one spy scandal after another broke in the mainstream US media, the most famous being The Walker Spy Ring. Other scandals also surfaced.
As if to highlight the point, this 1985 John Schlesinger film underscored that most of these spies were unremarkable and looked like ordinary citizens whom you would pass on the street and not doubt for even a minute. It only boiled down to two things – access and opportunity.
Christopher Boyce (Timothy Hutton) is employed as a clerk with a Defence Contractor. The son of an FBI agent is beyond doubt and is thought to be an all-American boy with bright prospects. His company is handling the documentation for a super-secret spy satellite that can take extremely high-resolution pictures. The kind of pics where legend says you can read a car’s licence plate from 200 miles up in space. Disillusioned with what he perceives to be US government policies and conspiracies against friendly Governments, Boyce contacts his childhood friend and drug dealer Andrew Daulton Lee (Sean Penn). Their plan? Sell the documentation of the spy satellite to the Soviets.
Lee acts as the courier while Boyce smuggles out the documents and codes of the spy satellite. At the Soviet’s insistence, he photographs the documents using the Minox sub-miniature “spy” camera. Boyce is motivated by idealism, while Lee is purely motivated by money. Lee starts acting increasingly irrationally due to his continued drug use. The Soviets, who were initially happy at the unexpected windfall, now no longer want to deal with Lee and his outbursts and want full access to the source – Boyce. The pressure starts mounting on both. During a surprise inspection, Boyce barely manages to keep back a document from which he has stolen all the data. As expected, everything goes South soon.
This is a stunningly good film showing how the KGB ruthlessly used all and every means to get information. They recognised the opportunity and played it accordingly. In this case, it was the super-secret KH11 spy satellite made by the Defense Contractor TRW, whose secrets were revealed to them for cash. Knowing a good thing when they see one, the KGB naturally used all its charm and reasoning to keep both in line. When the scandal broke in late 1977, almost all the data of the KH11 was in Soviet hands. The US “Photint” – Photographic Intelligence – program suffered a severe setback, leading to a new series of satellites and the expenses associated with making a new one. Naturally, the Soviets also got to catch up with the technology.
As shown here, it is access that matters. The lowest minion maintaining the documents is the fly in the ointment. Even being an all-American boy – WASP, FBI father, etc – doesn’t mean anything as Boyce succumbs to greed and then wants to set things right.
Performances are outstanding, with Sean Penn especially effective as the drug dealing Lee and David Suchet as the ruthless KGB handler “Alex”.
No car chases. No explosions. This is a real-world spy story told in a straightforward non, non-dramatic fashion. Almost as if the camera is just an observer. The horror or wonder is up to us.
Tailpiece: After his release from prison, Boyce expressed regret later, but it doesn’t seem true. He called himself a David looking for a Goliath!
The film is available on Amazon Prime for rent.
Real History/ Historical Background – 4 out of 5
Script – 5 out of 5
Story – 5 out of 5
Direction – 5 out of 5
Photography – 4 out of 5
Total – 4.6 out of 5
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