While any stability in this crazy world of ours is usually a good thing, there are times where it's sad to see that some things never change. While it may turn out that there is a logical explanation, the history here suggests otherwise.

In a completely unrelated set of events, rented two movies over the weekend, and was glad I didn't pay theater prices for either.

Spy Game put last generation's hunk Robert Redford with this generation's hunk Brad Pitt (or is this generation's hunk now Josh Hartnett?). In any case, Pitt's CIA agent character goes rogue to get someone out of a Chinese prison, and Redford spends his time at CIA HQ trying to figure out what happened, deflect the pressure from some ad hoc committee of CIA suits, and devise a way to get Pitt's character out. Most of the movie is in flashback, which gets annoying. That Redford's character tries to teach some lesson to Pitt's character that Redford ultimately violates to save Pitt doesn't help, as it's Foreshadowing wearing that orange tux from Dumb and Dumber.

I'd have almost prefered this movie to only be about Redford maneuvering inside CIA HQ to save Pitt. What the movie does have in this vein isn't anything new, but it's pretty good light entertainment. Of course, that would also take out a lot of Pitt's scenes, except those where he's getting slapped around by his captors. Hmm, that would be a much better movie, come to think of it.

Proof of Life is best known as the film that ruined the Meg Ryan-Dennis Quaid marriage. That Meg and Russell Crowe had any sort of romantic relationship is well hidden in this movie, where the leads develop feelings for each other through some sort of deus ex machina that involves long hours negotiating over a short-wave radio.

I mean, it's not ridiculous to think that either character would develop feelings for each other. Crowe's character comes back on his own volition to get David Morse's character out of the clutches of narco-terrorists, which is pretty endearing. And Meg Ryan is, well, Meg Ryan.

Her character actually plays pretty poorly. I think she's supposed to be some sort of free spirit/hippie/bohemian, but the only way they suggest this is to give her mismatching clothes and show her smoking in like half of her scenes. Actually, she's not really smoking, but rather just holding a cigarette that she rarely brings to her mouth. In most cases it's just attached to her hand and way out of place, like she's got a beach umbrella or a 9 iron there.

In the end, the movie turns into Let's Get Harry or any other of those 1980s flicks where a small group of committed men invade the enemy's compound to rescue a friend, children, or whoever. It's pretty much what you'd expect. David Caruso is OK as a fellow kidnap negotiator/paramilitary leader.

Probably a much better movie if we got to see more from the victim's perspective. I think David Morse is underrated. Not that he's Master Thespian or anything, but I think he was more compelling in his scenes than either Crowe or Ryan (or Pamela Reed, who plays Morse's sister, and is very annoying, though in some ways that's the point).