I should clarify that I like all the spies shown above. I enjoy watching the glamorous supehero that is James Bond as much as the ground to earth George Smiley. And it’s fun to see how much they differ from each other, with plenty of characters in between. I will discuss each in detail but first notice that the spies on realistic side often wear glasses while those at the other end wear branded sunglasses. If you think about it, the personalities of spies on the right hand side are contradictory to their profession. A spy should not stand out but rather should blend in. James Bond attracts attention wherever he goes. His cover would be blown in two minutes. To be fair though, Bond never stays that long in an enemy territory. After all, what’s the use of all those magical gadgets if you are going to lay low?
James Bond (Sean Connery – Daniel Craig)
James Bond is the ultimate fantasy of a spy. Unlimited budget without any red tape hindrances, free travel around the world in most exotic locations and Halle Berry and Monica Bellucci as colleagues. Everyone knows that James Bond’s world is a made up world. Every generation has a favourite Bond because the succession of different Bonds reflected the cool styles of those generations. With Daniel Craig, the franchise sought to be more realistic – within the confines of the narrative of course – with gadgets not working as expected or an auditor to oversee the expenditure of Bond. The long poker game in Casino Royale was a calculated risk, deviating from the action packed sequences that usually proliferate the Bond movies. It paid off and Craig succeeded in giving a new direction to the Bond franchise.
Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise)
The first Mission Impossible still remains my favourite. Brain De Palma made the best choice for the role of Ethan Hunt. No one could have pulled off Hunt but Tom cruise. The sheer force of his personality comes across every frame. The movie starts right away, after the logo of the Paramount is shown and we are in the middle of a tense interrogation scene. Tom Cruise taking off the face mask was the high point, followed immediately by Lalo Schifrin’s amazing soundtrack. Hats off to the vision of producers Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise who believed in a character that would compete with James Bond.
Jason Bourne (Matt Damon)
Jason Bourne is a notch below James Bond in the glamorous scale. He is a rogue CIA operative so no budget. No money means no fancy gadgets. He has to make do with whatever’s available. He speaks Spanish, German and French; something that the James Bond of Daniel Craig has started doing, almost reluctantly. Still, he is not completely out of the glamour camp. There are long action sequences which, although made realistic, are still the stuff of thriller movies. One caveat though. Jason Bourne is not an ordinary spy but a special CIA Black Ops operative. No one really knows what these people look like or how they operate so there is a possibility that Bourne is a notch down towards the realistic side. By the way, one of the issues in the movies – CIA Black ops killing American nationals – did happen few years later.
Edward “Brill” Lyle (Gene Hackman)
Enemy of the State is an interesting movie. Edward “Brill” Lyle is an ex-NSA analyst. He has a normal personality. He does not stand out in a crowd. The movie was prescient about the reach of NSA, though it underestimated it greatly. The NSA surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden in the smartphone era was much worse. While the movie is accurate factually, the presentation is done in the usual Hollywood style, complete with a climax involving the Italian mafia. With low key sequences minus the predictable action scenes, this could have been a very different movie.
I do not have a movie that would fit nicely midway between realistic and glamorous.
Joseph Turner (Robert Redford)
Three Days of the Condor is a gritty thriller based on the novel Six Days of the Condor by James Grady. Joseph Turner is a CIA analyst who reads novels and magazines to look for clues – a job invented out of thin air by James Grady but the KGB thought it was real and after watching the movie, they opened a new department employing 2000 Soviet citizens. Turner has a desk job but the situation demands that he turn into a real spy and he adapts very quickly. The action is low key enough to seem realistic. A revelation in the end occurs when the so called bad guy turns out to be a mercenary who helps Turner because now he is working for the other side.
Harry Palmer (Michael Caine)
The Ipcress File has been called the “anti-Bond” movie and rightly so. It was released in 1965, four years after the first Bond movie Dr. No. In the meantime, three more Bond movies had been released each year – From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball. The Ipcress File puts a dampener on the Bond glamour. Harry Palmer is a spy working with the British military intelligence. His job involves tailing people, making inquiries and submitting tedious reports. He tries his best to avoid the last one. He works with a modest Colt .32, though he gets to fire a machine gun later on. There are zero car chases or action scenes in the movie, except two. Both of these are more of a scuffle than serious fighting. Even though the premise of the movie rests on shaky grounds of disabling scientists through periodic stress and hypnosis, this does not affect the rest of the movie. The Ipcress File shows a realistic spy. Palmer tails people, talks to police, attends meetings and files reports. Then he goes to the supermarket to buy groceries and goes home to cook his meal. It shows that the job of a spy can be as boring as any other job, except for the interludes where the action is quick and sometimes fatal.
George Smiley (Gary Oldman)
The difference between The Ipcress File and Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy is that the latter has almost zero action scenes. Like Harry Palmer, Smiley spend all of his time going through files, making inquiries and thinking. What sets the movie apart from all others is that it raises moral and ethical questions, the gray areas of international espionage. The credit, of course, goes to John le Carré. Le Carré was a spy himself in MI5 and MI6 and his background research is solid. George Smiley is the most authentic spy that you will find – be it in the pages of John le Carré’s novels or on screen.
