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Spy vs. Spy

I’ve never been the biggest fan of espionage movies. In fact, I can think of only three that I really like: North by Northwest, Three Days of the Condor, and The Manchurian Candidate. However, if I were to shove everything into weird subgenres, then none of these would even qualify as espionage movies. True, they have all the usual craziness associated with spy movies — coded messages, shifty-eyed people in trenchcoats, elaborate conspiracies, possibly duplicitous love interests — but they don’t have what I typically associate with spy movies: the spy protagonist, or “spytagonist.” Okay, not spytagonist.

You know what I’m talking about: your James Bonds, your Ethan Hunts, your Jack Ryans, your… I dunno, does Jason Bourne count? They might get in over their heads and face dozens of double-crosses and explosions and inaccurate technobabble, but at the end of the day, they have the training and tradecraft to pull off the job. They almost rise to the level of “superhero” (especially Bond), performing extraordinary feats in order to save the planet.

With that in mind, it’s no surprise that I’d lump movies like North by Northwest and The Manchurian Candidate into the “conspiracy thriller” subgenre, not spy thrillers. Both focus on ordinary people trying to unravel elaborate conspiracies — both of which involve espionage — that are over their head. To some degree, the Bourne movies share this characteristic (especially the first one), but he still has that “spy superhero” quality, even if he can’t remember why. Either way, the “superhero” spy protagonist, in my mind, defines the distinction between the conspiracy thrillers I love and the espionage thrillers to which I’m fairly indifferent.

I can’t explain my indifference, except to say that these moves toe the razor-thin line between mind-blowing awesomeness and laughable excess. One wrong move, and I’m out. I can’t explain why I enjoyed Mission: Impossible 3 while merely tolerating the first two. I can’t explain why I can barely sit still during a James Bond movie but can watch slower paced movies like The Parallax View repeatedly. I don’t lose much sleep over it; my preferences don’t matter, as long as I can look at scripts from this subgenre and say, “I may not like this a whole lot, but I can recognize it’s well-written and somebody who does enjoy this kind of thing will love it.”

It helps that I spent much of my life unenthusiastically watching incredibly popular, well-regarded spy flicks. I’m assuming the recent glut of spy movies in production has to do with the unexpected success of the inexplicably beloved Casino Royale (seriously, it’s not bad, but it wears out its welcome about 30 minutes before it actually ends — maybe an homage to current Spielberg movies?) and maybe even the last Bourne movie (which made a metric shit-ton of money). It certainly doesn’t have to do with the unexpected “failure” of Mission: Impossible 3 or Mr. and Mrs. Smith (both of which were regarded as flops despite making decent money overseas and on DVD).

You know what intrigued me about this recent crop of spy scripts? Two of them spoofed Bond-type superspies, another involves an array of superspies but focuses on a clueless yuppie, and two more used a kind of cheesy “spies in suburbia” angle for their stories. None of them has a Bond type or a Bourne type. I don’t know how I feel about this. I actually preferred some of these scripts to most of the spy thrillers I’ve seen, but with superhero movies thriving and superspy movies making a comeback, why do so many of these scripts either shy away from or mock the archetypal superspy? I guess this is Hollywood’s version of originality.

It’s ironic, then, that three of the scripts that try so hard to avoid the tropes of spy thrillers share so many common elements:

• The weakest of the espionage scripts I’ve read tells the story of a vacationing couple whose relationship goes sour when the woman meets a Bond-esque superspy and falls for him, throwing the man into a jealous hissy-fit. So you have the James Bond spoof, but you have the “ordinary,” “relatable” conflict of a couple with relationship problems. Problems with the script arise when it becomes clear that the writers believe this extremely dysfunctional couple’s behavior is absolutely normal. A great vehicle for examining a problematic relationship is wasted as a result.
• The second script tells the more subdued story of an international assassin (not exactly a spy, but the beats of the story echo spy thrillers) who retires when he meets the woman of his dreams. They settle into a bland, suburban life; years later, a group of assassins — many of them neighbors planted nearby — are “activated,” so the couple races through various suburban set-pieces while trying to work through a relationship built on dishonesty. So here we have a minor variation on the spy archetype (he’s an assassin, not an intelligence-gatherer), but we retain the dysfunctional couple and roll in this idea of suburban-blandness-as-action-playground. It’s actually both a decent thriller and a decent comedy, and the couple is not nearly as problematic as the first script. The couple has problems and spend the script trying to find some common ground, as opposed to having significant problems that go largely unacknowledged.
• And then there’s the third script, which takes another Bond knockoff and drops him into suburbia. When his next-door neighbor discovers his not-very-well-hidden secret, the spy is forced to take him on as a partner. Yes, this is ridiculous; no, the writer doesn’t seem to have any awareness of this fact. Unfortunately, the script concentrates too much on an overly convoluted plot and doesn’t tap into the interesting notion of a debonair British spy/playboy/adventurer failing to conform to American suburbia. Pairing him up with the neighbor is the right idea, but they opt to turn the neighbor into the spy (which leads to reams of exposition instead of reams of hilarity), not the other way around. And let’s face it: when a random account makes you in less than 24 hours, can you really be considered the world’s best spy? At any rate, this has the Bond clone, the suburban setting, and even — to some extent — the relationship issues (he has some issues with his wife and family that are not explored satisfactorily).

This is a small sampling of the billions of spy scripts I keep reading, but I still have to comment on the lack of diversity here. Three movies, all in production, all with extremely similar themes, settings, and/or characters. It’s 1998 all over again. Should we see Deep Impact or Armageddon? Will this influx of spy movies — especially ones that are so similar to one another — burn audiences out? I have my suspicions, so consider this a warning, writers. Time to dust off that old spy thriller and try to sell it before there’s another decade-long dry spell.

Tags: Armageddon, Casino Royale, conspiracy, Deep Impact, espionage, Ethan Hunt, James Bond, Jason Bourne, Mission: Impossible 3, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, North by Northwest, reader job, redundant, relationships, similarities, spoof, spy, suburbia, superspy, The Manchurian Candidate, The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, thriller

Posted by Stan on January 19, 2009 8:32 AM  | Permalink  | Print-Friendly  | How Not to Write a Screenplay | Digg It