With a good cast and an intriguing/thick plot, this movie was quite a success. It showed how Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), a CIA agent, coped with the unexpected events which happened in his last day at work before his long-awaited-for-retirement. In his cautious way, agent Nathan Muir played the last game of poker with his cunning and ruthless CIA colleagues: single handedly, he tried using any resorts he could put his hand on, to organise the last rescue to save his protege Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) from being executed by the Chinese government over some espionage charge. The movie was full of fascinating scenes/events from countries ravaged with war, which all of us kept hearing about, eg, suicide bombings, bullets flying as normal daily events in certain parts of Middle East, etc.
From Muir's cautious narrating/flashbacks, the progress of how Tom Bishop was recruited and trained to become a very good CIA agent, were shown in great details, backed up with missions he completed over the years, from asia, to Europe, then Middle East, etc.
How much of what Muir told was true or false, noone really knew. Muir took his time doing this, in order to figure out the best and fastest way while he still could use all the best and most updated modern facilities his CIA agency had, the last time, to save his protege before his execution took place (within the 24 hours from the time he got captured while trying rescuing his former girlfriend from a Communist Chinese jail).
Knowing that the CIA meant to let Tom Bishop died (due to the fragile diplomacy between China and US at the time, especially since the US president was about to visit China over some Trade talk right the next day), Muir became more determined with his lone mission, especially since he seemed to blame himself for causing Bishop's former girlfriend's capture by the Chinese government in the first place.
The movie ended brilliantly. My question is, did Muir really sacrified the last 282 thousand dollars he had, in order to save his protege from death?
And how much of what Muir told us (the flashbacks, the narrating about the past), really happened?
