Spies Like Us (movie)
|
|
Spies Like Us is the name of a 1985 comedy movie starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, and Donna Dixon.
The movie presents the comic adventures of two novice CIA agents sent to the Soviet Union, ostensibly to infiltrate Soviet ICBM technology.
Dan Aykroyd plays Austin Millbarge, a geekish, basement dwelling codebreaker for the Pentagon, who aspires to escape his under-respected job to become a secret agent. Chase is Emmett Fitz-Hume, a wisecracking pencil pusher who takes the civil service exam under peer pressure. Millbarge and Fitz-Hume meet during the test, which Fitz-Hume is attempting to cheat on.
Needing expendable agents to act as decoys to draw attention away from a more advanced team, the CIA decides to enlist the two and put them through minimal training, then send them on an undefined mission into southeastern Soviet Russia. Meanwhile, professional agents are well on their way to reaching the real objective, the overtaking of a mobile ICBM launcher.
The main team takes a loss, leaving only Dixon's character (Boyer), while Millbarge and Fitz-Hume miraculously escape enemy traps, attacks, and other certain perils. Eventually the bumbling pair team up with Boyer.
In the Siberian snow, the team overpowers a mobile missile guard unit, and following orders in real-time from the CIA (operating from a military bunker located deep under an abandoned drive-in theater), they begin to operate the launcher. At the end of their instructions, the vehicle launches the ICBM into space, presumably targeting the United States. Thinking they have begun a nuclear war, the Americans and Russians all pair up to have sex before the world ends.
Meanwhile, the military commander at the operations bunker initiates the conversion of the drive-in theater to expose what is hidden beneath the screens and ticket booth: a huge black-op "Star Wars"-esque megawatt laser and collector/emitter. The purpose of sending the CIA team to launch a Soviet ICBM is then exposed as a means to test this ABM system. Unfortunately, the laser fails to intercept the nuclear missile, which is heading for the U.S. and will almost certainly trigger a global thermonuclear war.
Guilt-ridden and horrified at the thought of having launched a nuclear missile at their own country, the CIA team (and their new Soviet friends), through use of Millbarge's technical knowledge, force a malfunction in the launcher vehicle and use it to transmit junk instructions to the traveling missile, causing it to self-destruct. Immediately afterwards, the underground bunker back at the drive-in theater is uncovered by regular Army, and the CIA and military officials involved in the covert operation are arrested. For their part, Millbarge, Fitz-Hume, and Boyer go on to become nuclear disarmament negotiators, playing a nuclear version of Risk-meets-Trivial Pursuit against their Russian friends.
Main cast
- Chevy Chase - Emmett Fitz-Hume
- Dan Aykroyd - Austin Millbarge
- Steve Forrest - General Sline
- Donna Dixon - Karen Boyer
- Bruce Davison - Ruby
- Bernie Casey - Colonel Rhumbus
- William Prince - Keyes
- Tom Hatten - General Miegs
- Frank Oz - Test Monitor
- Charles McKeown - Jerry Hadley
- Terry Gilliam - Dr. Imhaus
- Matt Frewer - Soldier #2
- Bob Hope - Himself
- Joel Coen - Drive-In Security
- Sam Raimi - Drive-In Security
- Michael Apted - Ace Tomato Agent
- B.B. King - Ace Tomato Agent
- Larry Cohen - Ace Tomato Agent
- Edwin Newman - Himself
External link
- Spies Like Us (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090056/) at IMDB