Redford plays Nathan Muir, an aging CIA operative on the verge of retirement (yes, this has the old movie cliché of being his last day of work before he sets out to a southern island). Pitt is Tom Bishop, a younger spy Muir recruited many years prior and who has now wound up in a heap of trouble in China. Bishop is to be executed by the Chinese government and it seems his own government won’t do anything about it (although I’m not sure we’re ever convinced that there’s a valid reason they want him to die other than to give this movie a reason to exist). Muir is Bishop’s only ally. Muir has 24 hours to use his "smarts" at his Washington office to help Bishop half the world away.

Spy Game uses a series of flashbacks about how Bishop was first recruited by Muir and then trained. Basically, we’re given building blocks that we have to assemble into a story. It should be exciting, but really it’s not. For some reason it comes across as tedious, not to mention confusing and full of plot holes. In all of this is a loose connection about how Bishop got himself into his current predicament -- very loose. But the threadbare plot isn’t the worst of its sins. The problem is we never really care enough about anyone in this movie. For whatever reason, both Redford’s and Pitt’s characters never seem to engage the audience. It’s as if we’re watching them from a distance. As Bishop is getting beaten to a pulp in prison (which we’re shown every so often to remind us that he’s supposed to be the integral character in this film), we’re never really moved because we’ve never formed any sort of attachment to him. Plus, there’s also the problem of knowing full well that this is a big-budget Hollywood movie and just somehow everything will come out fine.