Rating: 
Summary: Best movie I've seen in a long time
Review: This movie kept my attention and was very entertaining. Colin Farrell's performance was far better than what i had expected, and for all you Al Pacino fans, this is a must see. "The Recruit" earned a strong 5 stars in my book.
Rating: 
Summary: a little racy for a 13 year old
Review: I brought my 13 year old daughter and although I thoroughly enjoyed the movie we (my daughter included) thought it was far too much to see for a 13 year old...too much violence, sex and language content for our liking.
Rating:
Summary: Pacino Does It Again!
Review: "The Recruit" shows once again why Al Pacino is the master of his craft. He brings so much depth and persona to any role he plays to the point where it's so scary, it's downright believable. Pacino portrays a CIA agent who has his eye on a recent M.I.T. computer software engineer (Colin Farrell). He decides to take his bright understudy into the organization to undergo serious training regimens at "The Farm". This "important" mission is extremely trying and tedious at times for Pacino's young protege, and the senior's sometimes crafty manipulations attempt to make this young recruit "be all he can be". With so much action happening nonstop, it's best to view "The Recruit" studiously, or you might miss important parts, making it difficult to understand the complete meaning of the storyline, which doesn't falter, or become overworked in the process. So, the only question left to answer is: "Did our young recruit make the final cut?" The only way to know for sure is to check out "The Recruit" at your local theater today. You've been served your enlistment papers - be sure to fill them out while you're there, too, and get "drafted" NOW!
Rating:
Summary: An adrenaline rush!
Review: RECRUIT is Hollywood at its frenetic best. If you're up for a well made, edge-of-the-seat thriler then this is defintiely a movie for you. The story is well written, tight, pungent, and with just enough twists and turns to keep you guessing (even though you may have an idea where the movie is going from the start). Part of the reason that the movie's premise that nothing is what it appears is that it plays well when it in the hands of Colin Farrell and Al Pacino. There is a roughness to the exterior of both Farrell the actor and Farrell the main character that belies the classic vulnerbility of the guys who make you want to believe in their character. Pacino delivers, as usual, as does the rest of this supporting cast. But it is Colin Farrell who is proving himself to be an actor on the rise...and that is enough reason to bolt to the theater to get your adrenaline going! A good show, this.
Rating: 
Summary: A fairly entertaining film, but I've got a few complaints...
Review: Frankly, this was a pretty poor movie in most respects. Having said that, I still personally enjoyed it, but being objective I'd say it's far from an Oscar contender. The plot is pretty straightforward, an apparently brilliant and very athletic bartender and computer programmer and hacker (something which due to the absolutely ridiculous techno-babble and buzz words used in the movie is less then believable) extraordinaire played by Colin Farrell, is recruited to work for the CIA by William Burke (a fairly solid performance by Al Pacino). Of course, Farrel finds a love interest, and various different missions and training ensues as they are brought to 'The Farm', the alias for a CIA training facility. The plot begins to develop and Colin Farrell's character finds himself played the fool in a fairly interesting set of plot twists (the goal here is to prove that nothing is as it seems, although they were never convincing enough to have me believing any of it). I won't ruin the plot, but it's nothing all that impressive anyway. In the end I was fairly entertained and the whole idea of the film was pretty interesting, but all in all it's a fairly weak film (from the acting to everything else).
Rating:
Summary: Good, But Little Staying Power
Review: There's really nothing wrong with "The Recruit". It held my attention throughout, thanks in no small part to the acting of Al Pacino and Colin Farrell - Pacino's acting chops are legendary and Farrell's someday will be - yet I never found myself completely enthralled. It was a solid thriller, better than the typical popcorn thriller, without being truly thrilling. The storyline is fascinating - Farrell's character is recruited into the CIA by Pacino's character, and the film explores the themes of deception and suspicion. Whom can we believe? Who can be trusted? Is anyone telling the truth? Fascinating themes and ably explored, yet the conclusion isn't solid enough to sustain the intensity of the film's themes.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing is what it seems
Review: A brilliant college graduate is recruited by the CIA but must first survive The Farm, the Agency's treacherous training program, before he can enter into the wonderful world of spies. The Recruit wants us to believe the film's main thrust revolves around the Central Intelligence Agency's old maxim "nothing is what it seems." Had they stuck with this framework, perhaps the film would have been more compelling. Instead, it lapses into the expected and the implausible, where you can pretty much guess exactly what's going to happen, even if it really makes no sense. Our hapless protagonist, James Clayton (Super hottie Colin Farrell) is hustled by CIA recruiter Walter Burke (Al Pacino), who believes himself to be a "scary judge of talent" and sees James as prime CIA meat. When James hesitantly accepts the offer to come to The Farm, he does so motivated less by helping his country and more by trying to find out what happened to his father, who died mysteriously several years before and whom Burke alleges he knew. Once at The Farm, James proves his mettle and is told again and again, "it's in his blood." Ah, then should we believe James' father, who supposedly worked for Shell Oil, really worked for the CIA as an NOC, or Non-Official Cover agent, one of the Agency's more prestigious--and dangerous--positions? The plot thickens. James also falls for fellow recruit Layla (Bridget Moynahan), but, during an intense interrogation set-up, he makes a serious error trying to save her and "washes out" of the program. Just when he thinks he's out forever, James gets pulled back in by Burke, who tells him all his trials and tribulations were just a test and that he is really NOC material and needed to root out a mole. Is it what it seems? Heavens, no. You'll be seeing a lot of Farrell in the coming months. Along with The Recruit, this year alone he'll be in three major feature films, including the upcoming comic-book actioner Daredevil; S.W.A.T., yet another feature based on a TV series; and the sniper movie Phone Booth. How has this 26-year-old Irish hunk risen so quickly in the ranks, you might ask? Maybe it's because he has an uncanny ability to make the parts he plays completely believable. He slips easily into the Clayton character, the quintessential CIA recruit with a daddy complex, and fuels the film with the right amount of acting skills and smoldering good looks. Unfortunately, his co-star, the high and mighty Mr. Pacino, is becoming a caricature of himself. Playing Burke is certainly no stretch for the actor, and the film would not be complete without the requisite ranting scene where CIA veteran Burke tells the world all about it--voice booming, words punctuated. It seems this has become the standard in any Pacino performance, and frankly, it's getting tiresome. Where's the quiet but powerful Michael Corleone when you need him? Moynahan (The Sum of All Fears) is somewhat bland as Clayton's love interest Layla. Word of advice: if Colin Farrell is making eyes at you, go for it immediately. Don't waste any time. For all its obviousness, The Recruit does some things right. No stranger to the inner workings of our government agencies, director Roger Donaldson, who directed the Cuban Missile Crisis drama "Thirteen Days" and the Pentagon thriller "No Way Out", gives us access to the CIA training program, or The Farm, as its lovingly referred to--and it's one scary place. Obviously, when making the film, things had to be handled delicately as not to divulge too much, so the film does take some creative liberties in showing the intense training the eager recruits have to face. That's fine with us--if we can't rely on death-defying stunts and car chases, then outrageous mind games are generally good enough. But once The Recruit takes leave of The Farm, the movie begins to fall apart. The inherent action set up for us in the first part--James finding out about his father, the blossoming relationship between Layla and James, who will be the NOC, and the whole mole plot--just isn't as convincing to carry the film through its fruition. And being able to guess the next move isn't much fun, either. For a ringside seat at the secret CIA training process, The Recruit delivers a somewhat fascinating view. Yet, if not powered by Colin Farrell's strong performance, the predictable film would ultimately fall flat on its face.
Rating:
Summary: It isn't great...but it isn't terrible...it just is.
Review: Most of what's offered in THE RECRUIT is familiar territory. We've seen it all before and Al Pacino is playing the exact same role he does a lot of the time. It isn't bad though. It isn't good either. It just is. I enjoyed it but not immensly. However, Colin Farrell is highly entertaining and proves that his assault on Hollywood will be worth the attack.
Rating:
Summary: star-making vehicle for Colin Farrell
Review: "The Recruit" is an efficiently tooled espionage thriller starring Al Pacino as a high-ranking CIA operative whose job it is to mold a promising young trainee, played by Colin Farrell, into genuine spy material. Bridget Moynihan rounds out the cast as a beautiful fellow student who may or may not be a mole trying to plant a devastating computer virus into the organization's computer system. Finding out the truth about her becomes the neophyte agent's first "assignment." The Roger Towne/Kurt Wimmer/Mitch Glazer screenplay is high on atmosphere and low on credibility as it attempts to combine mystery, romance and pseudo-documentary realism into a single unified whole. It doesn't always work, primarily because much of what we see the characters doing defies logic and credibility (these "spies" seem abnormally foolish at times). Be that as it may, the film succeeds as innocuous entertainment if you don't go into it with abnormally high expectations. The film does have some fun with the issue of trust, as Farrell is forced to figure out what is real and what is a "test," who is on the level and who isn't. The "surprise" turnabout at the end really isn't much of a surprise, particularly to anyone who has seen "Charade" or any of its countless imitators. At least, Pacino and Moynihan are both effective in their roles, even though the script doesn't give them all too much to work with. "The Recruit," given its generally disposable nature, would probably sink rather quickly into cinematic oblivion were it not for one all-important aspect: its star Colin Farrell. This young actor has appeared in a number of noteworthy films in the past (including Spielberg's "Minority Report" last summer), but "The Recruit" will probably come to be seen as his breakout film, the one that puts him on the road to superstardom. For the first time, Farrell commands the screen in a way that far outshines the quality of his material and he makes the film his own. He has a kind of bad-boy impishness coupled with a sensitivity and vulnerability that jump right off the screen. That combined with his smoldering good looks virtually guarantees him a long and fruitful career as a Hollywood big shot. It's not often that a comparative rookie is able to hold his own, let alone steal the spotlight from a high-powered veteran like Pacino, but Farrell does so here. Thus, even though "The Recruit" is a pretty dispensable film in its own right, it provides us with the chance to witness the birth of a new star, a movie supernova if you will. And you can take that prediction to the bank.
Rating:
Summary: Great January Movie...
Review: Then again, January is the month where movie studios put there movies out that they don't think could do well against better movies. All that said, it was an ok movie; it wasn't meaningful and by the end of two weeks, I'll probably have forgotten that I saw it. But for now, it was good. It was very entertaining and not too long. Colin Ferrel did a good job. Al Pacino once again deserves the "Susan Lucci Award for Overacting." The story seemed a bit contrived and a little too hackneyed. The best part was watching Bridet Moynahan. The story was somewhat lame, but in the end the end, the movie delivered on what it was supposed to do- entertain you and then erase from your memory. It's the only recent action movie out there worth seeing.
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