Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within

Watching this movie was like reading the Wikipedia information on Ames. The movie is dry and schematic, without the characters development and no artistic details. It is done in a primitive and even amateurish manner. Having such a great factual materials, its creators produced a boring flop.

...they got the date he was arrested right. If you really want to find out factual information on this subject, try searching for press releases. This would have made a good story if it were fiction...but unfortunately they didn't bother to do any research (officials at the Russian embassy DO NOT have secure lines into CIA headquarters). This movie isn't worth anyone's time.

This movie follows the story of Aldrich Ames, the most dangerous spy in the history of the CIA. It stars Timothy Hutton, who also played a spy in The Falcon and the Snowman. It was very interesting to see how he fell into the life of a spy and how he was able to avoid detection for some 8 years. It was also interesting to see how the CIA works from the inside, assuming that this movie is somewhat accurate in its depection. Overall, I would recommend this movie especially if you are someone who likes spy movies or movies about government ineptitude.

This is a straightforward retelling of the Ames saga that seldom rises above the level of a made-for-TV movie and contains a major anachronism in that the fall of the Soviet Union is shown as having come during the Clinton administration rather than the Bush administration. Timothy Hutton is seriously miscast as Ames--he's too young for the part by at least 15 years. Under the glasses and mustache that give him a superficial resemblance to Ames, his face is too fresh for a burned-out career civil servant in late middle age. Hutton was much more believable as the idealistic traitor Christopher Boyce in "The Falcon and the Snowman," a similar themed but much better film. But Elizabeth Pena is excellent as Ames' South American wife Rosario in a part that is terribly underwritten, and Joan Plowright is superb as the elderly spycatcher Jeanne Vertefeuil. Although entertaining, this is a movie that could have been much better if it had a more polished script and a bigger budget.

"Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within" tells the tale of the CIA's most infamous mole who was arrested in 1994 after causing inestimable damage to national security. An obvious small screen product (Showtime), the film does a good job of showing the pressures on Ames; how he rationalized his misdeeds; and how justice finally caught up with him. Sans super spy techo-nonsense, this film portrays people as people; imperfect and human. A solid docudrama for anyone interested in spy stuff.