The Falcon and the Snowman

I think some critic somewhere said this film fell short of being a great film, but was a very good one. That's accurate, you are left wanting to know more. The best performance comes from David Suchet as a sardonic and frequently supercilious Russian. The film commendably avoids trying to make us empaphise with traitors and even manages some humour in all the madness. In one blink or you'll miss it scene, Daulton infiltrates an embassy function where he speaks to a foreign diplomat. "Is this the usual garb of your countrymen?" He asks. "Yes, it's garbage" the man replies.

The film appears open minded about whether Boyce is an idealist or an opportunist who fails to realise the significance of his actions. His confession of having received payment from the Soviets and his cynical dismissing of money as 'never being very important to me' suggests a more amoral stance, but his other remarks perhaps reveal a more complex and sincere character. Boyce seems to be suggesting that any leap forward in technology must also go hand in hand with an equal quantitative one in morality. But I think it was Einstien who said that the bomb has changed everything except the way man thinks. This suggests that Boyce's weary indifference while being interviewed was due to his realisation that this moral leap was beyond man and therefore there was no hope, we are doomed to extinction. All political and religious life had been rendered meaningless to him due to the impermanence of man in the face of super-technology. This may account for his reluctance to recite the 'valley of death' speech to his father, as he knew full well that it's message was also meaningless in the context of modern warfare. No-one, not even the generals would be left standing. Boyce then, was possibly suffering a certain existential despair, as he stated America was the first country to use nuclear weapons. His concern that his betrayal meant little because we are already in jeopardy is even more pertinent today, with more and more countries either acquiring or seeking to acquire nuclear technology. It's rather like a group of toddlers playing with a grenade, passing it around. Say you were to add more grenades, would you then increase the likelihood of an accident such as the pulling out of a pin?

This rare political film asks a more broad and philosophical question, perhaps. If Boyce says he knows something about predatory behaviour (and the film is full of big fish eating little fish motifs) and left the church because he has decided that man is not divine and just another animal, where does that leave man if he cannot ultimately change his nature? The film does not leave you with an answer, merely the fear on the faces of uncomprehending parents and the unseen spectre of a mushroom cloud.

Based on a true story, Christopher Boyce (Timothy Hutton) quits the seminary, and fall into a menial job at a military contractor. He has father issues and angry at US foreign policies. He, along with his drug dealing criminal friend Daulton Lee (Sean Penn), sold secret communications to the Soviet Union.

Sean Penn is great at playing low life sleazebag. He is at his jittery best here. His is the juicier part. Timothy Hutton does a good all America guy. I wish he had more depth and something more sinister to his character. He doesn't have enough to explain his motive. There has to be a more compelling character in there. But in the movie, Sean Penn is overshadowing Timothy Hutton. I don't think Hutton got enough of the character.

In the movie, "The Falcon and the Snowman", when they were showing Christopher Boyce around the complex, the satellite in the background was the actual Ryholite satellite that is now in space. TRW allowed interior shots. TRW also allowed both interior and exterior shots for one of the original Star Trek TV series. (The episode is the one where Spock goes blind when a string of satellite lights are activated to kill the aliens). Christopher escaped jail (Lompock) and was featured on America's Most Wanted. He was drinking in a bar when the show aired. He said, "Hey, that's me". Needless to say, he was captured and transfered to a maximum security jail.

Set in the years of the Nixon/Ford administration, The Falcon And The Snowman is the story of a young man who wildly went off the track in his idealism and winds up a traitor. The idealist is the falcon part of the title and the young man who works for the Central Intelligence Agency and discovers that were doing some dirty tricks in the countries that are supposed to be allies is played by Timothy Hutton.

Hutton is as shocked as Claude Rains was to discover that gambling was going on at Rick's. After all it was father Pat Hingle who got him the job at CIA through his connections with the FBI. That he had no inkling that anything like this was going on is a bit much. But Hutton is actually shown the proper path. Do a Daniel Ellsberg and get it to the media. Instead he turns traitor and decides to sell secrets to the Soviet Union.

But this genius decides to go into partnership with an old childhood friend who's become a drug dealer to support his high living lifestyle, no pun intended. That's the snowman of the title and when he's on the screen, Sean Penn dominates the film. Hutton needs someone who knows the criminal ways, tutoring in those ways, and subterfuge if needed. Of course Penn knows that, but anyone with a brain has to realize that Penn's cocaine habit would sink them.

The ironic thing is that this is a true story otherwise no one would believe it. And then Hutton goes through another Rains like moment when he discovers the Russians can be as dirty as us, dirtier. The second best performance in the film is the BBC's Hercule Poirot, David Suchet. In playing Poirot for the BBC series, Suchet has reached the culmination of a career like J. Carrol Naish back in the days of the studio system playing an incredible variety of ethnic types. He even more reminds of another man who did the same, Herbert Lom. Had this been made 20 years earlier, I could have seen Lom very easily in the role of the exasperated Russian agent who is really losing his patience dealing with fools.

The Falcon And The Snowman boasts some really good performances, but in the end the general unlikeability of the leads makes you really want to hit these two upside the head with two by four.

For the 1980s, this is a very dark movie. At this point, filmmakers were beginning to operate under the assumption that all films require smarmy comic relief (which, of course, is taken to the extreme today), flashy action scenes (even more overdone today), or steamy sex scenes.

Hutton and Penn are stupendous in their roles as childhood friends turned Soviet spies. Penn in particular is brilliant as hapless drug dealer Daulton Lee.

What you have here is a true thriller/drama. There is no eye candy to speak of, but the story is so compelling and the acting so superb that (hopefully) most people wouldn't miss it. There are a couple amusing scenes, in particular the one where Penn tries to get his Soviet benefactors involved in a major drugrunning deal.

Well worth watching.