Movie Review: The Recruit Starring Colin Farrel and Al Pacino

The Recruit is an action packed intelligent movie starring Al Pacino as Edmund Burke and Colin Farrell as James Clayton. The film is about the relationship between the two men. Clayton is a MIT graduate who graduates at the top of his class and is brilliant in intelligence. While working as a bartender, Clayton is approached by Edmund Burke who is a CIA trainer and tells him to join the CIA and come to a training camp. After passing a rigorous written exam, Clayton goes to training camp which is adventurous to say the least. Clayton falls in love with a girl named Layla as they both try to complete the training program.

The film shows Al Pacino in his brilliance as an Academy Award winner from his film, Scent of a Woman and other past hit films and in this role his plays his part perfectly. He serves as a mentor to James Clayton and when he believes that there is a mole in the CIA plotting against the country; Burke dispatches Clayton on a secret mission to find the real mole.

The film is filled with all kinds of twists and turns on the storyline and the ending is filled with quite a shock. Edmund Burke had told Clayton that Layla was the mole in the CIA and a terrorist so Colin Farrell pursues her and follows her closely to see what she is up to. As it seems to the viewer, she really is a terrorist, trying to sneak out valuable information from the defense company she works for.

The film reveals its true plot line that nothing is as it seems and you don't know who to trust. James Clayton has it in his blood to be a CIA operative and follow in his father's footsteps. Yet Clayton comes to realize that this is no longer a game on his training mission, he is stuck in the middle of a real CIA conspiracy plot.

However, in the end, Clayton discovers that this is no longer a "test" for the CIA or for Burke and that Burke is the mole in the CIA and has been setting up Clayton to go down for a fall. In the end, Burke must find out the truth about Burke and stop him from carrying out the top secret information from the CIA before it is too late.

This film was quite good and I recommend it to any movie viewer. Al Pacino was great in his role as he is in almost every film that he is in and Colin Farrell is quietly emerging in Hollywood as one of the best young actors.