The Recruit on DVD

Here’s a really good thriller, even though we had the bad guy pegged long before the hero did.

Colin Farrell is a CIA recruit under the tutelage of crusty old veteran agent Al Pacino. His most important lesson to teach is that everything is a test and that nothing is as it appears - and that pretty well sums up what goes on in this movie!

We get to see some interesting “spy school” stuff off the top as Farrell and his fellow students are taught the ways of the CIA - but then Farrell flunks out and is unceremoniously dumped back to his earlier life, or so he thinks.

As it turns out, his failure was a sham (or was it?) and he actually passed (or did he?) and his teacher has an assignment for him (or is it?) to smoke out a mole (or is it?) who’s trying to steal a potentially horrifying software program (or is it?) and pass it onto the enemy (perhaps). Worst of all, the mole is the woman (Bridget Moynihan) with whom he’s falling in love. Or is she?

We won’t spoil the story, which we found probably the most enjoyable such flick since The Bourne Identity. Watch it yourself for a gripping 115 minutes in the home theater.

Farrell is great, but not surprisingly he’s outclassed by Pacino here. And that’s fine.

The DVD is wonderful, with superb picture quality and audio that’s about as good as you could want. The THX-certified disc is presented in anamorphic widescreen (16x9 TV compatible), and the details are so sharp you can almost count the hairs in Farrell’s stubble. Audio is offered in a choice of Dolby Digital or dts 5.1 surround and it’ll give your home theater system a nice workout.

Incidentally, the box says the film’s aspect ratio is 1.77:1 and claims that shows more of the film than you could see in theatres. In the home theater, the picture translates to 16x9 the same way 1.85:1, 1.78:1 and 1.66:1 do, so you may not notice a difference unless you say The Recruit in the theater and noticed it a tad “narrow.”

Then there are the extras. First up is a running commentary with director Roger Donaldson and star Colin Farrell. There’s also “Spy School: Inside the CIA Training Program,” a supposedly never before seen look inside the CIA. We wouldn’t count on the CIA having given away its most secret secrets, but what the heck.

You also get deleted scenes with optional commentary.

The Recruit, from Touchstone Home Video
115 min. anamorphic widescreen (1.77:1, 16x9 TV compatible), Dolby Digital and dts 5.1 surround
Starring Al Pacino, Colin Farrell, Bridget Moynihan, Gabriel Macht
Produced by Roger Nirnbaum, Jeff Apple, Gary Barber
Written by Roger Towne and Kurt Wimmer and Mitch Glazer, directed by Roger Donaldson

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