The Falcon and the Snowman is an overlong, fairly factual account of the two title characters, who between them managed to sell US security secrets to the Soviet Union during the mid 1970's. It features very competent acting from both Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn as the two leads respectively, but lacks any real degree of suspense and the outcome always seems very predictable from the moment the duo, choose (for different reasons) to adopt the path they willingly do.
The movie never succeeds, or even really bothers to try to establish why such a mismatched pair happened to be such lifelong buddies. Idealistic Christopher Boyce was contemplating joining the priesthood for goodness sake, as well as being the son of an FBI agent, whereas Andrew Daulton Lee, is depicted unfairly or not, as a layabout son from a wealthy family, looking for the easy path to riches in life. In the film, Boyce appears by far, the more interesting character, with his background and interests in politics and falconry. Yet much of the long, second act, repetitively focuses on Lee's middleman interactions with his Soviet handlers. It's almost as if director John Schlesinger, was desperately seeking ways to expand Lee's rather pedestrian story. The script even seems to acknowledge this conundrum, with the Soviets frequently indicating they really weren't interested in the Snowman and just wanted to meet the Falcon (in doing so cutting out the dopey intermediary).
Even imprisonment seems to have highlighted their different personalities. After serving his time Lee was released, having ended his drug dependency and continued to lead a mainstream, non-offending existence. Boyce, completely changed tack, escaped from prison, with the former seminarian carrying out a number of infamously successful bank robberies, before being recaptured and returned to serve out an increased sentence. A more interesting film I think might have just centred on his life, Perhaps another case of Batman, not needing a Robin?
The movie never succeeds, or even really bothers to try to establish why such a mismatched pair happened to be such lifelong buddies. Idealistic Christopher Boyce was contemplating joining the priesthood for goodness sake, as well as being the son of an FBI agent, whereas Andrew Daulton Lee, is depicted unfairly or not, as a layabout son from a wealthy family, looking for the easy path to riches in life. In the film, Boyce appears by far, the more interesting character, with his background and interests in politics and falconry. Yet much of the long, second act, repetitively focuses on Lee's middleman interactions with his Soviet handlers. It's almost as if director John Schlesinger, was desperately seeking ways to expand Lee's rather pedestrian story. The script even seems to acknowledge this conundrum, with the Soviets frequently indicating they really weren't interested in the Snowman and just wanted to meet the Falcon (in doing so cutting out the dopey intermediary).
Even imprisonment seems to have highlighted their different personalities. After serving his time Lee was released, having ended his drug dependency and continued to lead a mainstream, non-offending existence. Boyce, completely changed tack, escaped from prison, with the former seminarian carrying out a number of infamously successful bank robberies, before being recaptured and returned to serve out an increased sentence. A more interesting film I think might have just centred on his life, Perhaps another case of Batman, not needing a Robin?