The Falcon and the Snowman

A film about a real espionage case of the 1970s. Christopher Boyce takes a job at a defence contractor. The work looks ordinary but what he sees is not: classified traffic from a satellite programme passes through his hands, and among it is interference in the internal politics of an allied country. Having learned this he does not know what to do, and tells his childhood friend Daulton Lee. Lee sells drugs and is in debt. He offers to take the documents to the Soviet embassy in Mexico. What the film is interested in is not ideology but unpreparedness. Both are amateurs; they know nothing about espionage and do not grasp the size of what they are doing. As the narrative goes on their plan gets away from them and their trust in each other runs out. Timothy Hutton plays Boyce and Sean Penn plays Lee. John Schlesinger directed. The closing song, sung by David Bowie over music by the Pat Metheny Group, became known independently of the film. A solid example for anyone who likes espionage films based on real events and American cinema of the 1980s. For a viewer expecting a brisk thriller, the narrative is slow and built on two characters coming apart.