The Recruit (2003)

This spy thriller, starring Al Pacino, Colin Farrell and Bridget Moynahan, center around a CIA recruit whose sole mission it is to find a mole within the agency

Summary

-An MIT hacker who joins the CIA is given the mission by his mentor to help ferret out a mole within the agency

Cast

-Colin Farrell: James Clayton

-Al Pacino: Walter Burke

-Bridget Moynahan: Layla

-Gabriel Macht: Zack

-Kenneth Mitchell: Alan

-Mike Realba: Ronnie

-Ron Lea: Dell Rep

-Karl Pruner: Dennis Slayne

Did You Know?

-In the scene where Colin Farrell's character is given a mission to pick up a girl in the Blue Ridge Bar, he tells the girl he just got out of jail. This was Colin Farrell's idea. He stated he used it on a girl one time he was trying to pick up in a bar and the producers loved it. They let him use it in the film

-During the opening credits, the photos showing the man and small boy are supposed to be that of James and his father. In real life, those are pictures actually of Colin Farrell and his father

-When Colin's character James and Al's character Walter go to meet up at a restaurant, Al accidentally damaged the car. This damage is visible when they pull up to this restaurant

-During the scene where James and the guys are playing poker, he talks to Zack, who was a former cop in Miami. He calls Zack "Sonny Crockett", a reference to the TV show Miami Vice. Ironically, in 2006, Colin Farrell would star in the film version of the movie, playing Sonny Crockett

-At the Blue Ridge Bar, the band playing onstage is a Canadian band called Wide Mouth Mason

-At the MIT fair, there was a booth for Alias Maya, now known as Autodesk Maya. It's a highly advanced 3-D CG software used for non-technical design. It was used to help make the Lord of the Rings series. In 2003, this software was costing around $8,000 a seat. Because of its high complexity, there is a find function to locate menu items and only a few people could master only one or two parts. This was used in a scene showing extremely high skilled hacking software

-All of the mobile phones used in the film were Motorola phones. In the end scenes, the phone Burke talks on at The Farm has a clear Verizon logo

-During the interrogation scene where he is hooked up to a lie detector, the CIA questioner asks James "Would you rather ride on a train, dance in the rain or feel no pain?" This is a reference to later scenes. James chases a fugitive through and under a train. This "fugitive" turns out to be his friend Zack. When he is chasing Layla, it is raining. And when he is kidnapped and tortured, it tests his limits on pain