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For a last-day-of work thumbing of nose toward the bureaucracy of offices,
this movie’s better than Office Space.
In this thoroughly enjoyable (though not deep) action film, Robert Redford
plays Nathan Muir, an about-to-retire CIA operative. On his last day he hears that a young
operative named Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) that he had once mentored is in trouble, and that those in
power may not help him. The movie brings you back and forth between the memories
of the mentorship and the present predicament and what the Muir
is trying to do to solve it.
Anyone who’s dealt with office politics will appreciate Muir’s efforts to work simultaneously within and outside of the system.
And anyone who enjoys a good espionage flick will appreciate both Bishop’s youthful tactics and the more mature, but still cowboyish,
subversive tactics of Muir.
One more interesting thing about this movie (and other similar ones)—it’s
a reminder of how everything has consequences and how decisions, great and small,
have wide-reaching effects. And for us common folks, it’s a reminder that
seemingly mundane things done in government offices every day change the world.
All in all, it’s a great way to spend an evening if you’re up for a good action
flick: it’s got mystery, intrigue, and subversion of bureaucracy. What more
could you want?
