BISHOP BECOMES PAWN IN 'SPY GAME'.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

``Spy Game'' is a serviceably middle-brow thriller with more than a few moments of absorbing intrigue that asks the probing question: How old is Brad Pitt supposed to be, anyway?

It's set in 1991, when Pitt's character, a rogue CIA agent named Tom Bishop, is captured during a spectacularly brazen attempt to spring an inmate from a Chinese prison. It's established that Pitt began his illustriously shadowy career in 1976 in Vietnam, more than a year after America's rank-and-file soldiers had officially withdrawn from the country (according to this film, however, intelligence agents lingered to inflict further mayhem).

That'd put Pitt somewhere around 40 or so, unless he established himself as the world's youngest tough-guy assassin. Oh, and there's also the small matter of dawn breaking in Hong Kong when it's 8 a.m. on America's East Coast, another impossibility given the 13-hour difference.

But never mind all this - movies like this aren't made to get you thinking, just to sit back and enjoy the ride. And particularly in the scenes in which Pitt and Robert Redford are playing off one another - or when Redford's being most agreeably vexing with his superiors at Virginia's CIA headquarters - the ride's most enjoyable indeed.

Redford stars as Nathan Muir, the agent who recruited Bishop and served as his mentor. When Bishop is captured during his rescue attempt in China, Muir is brought in - on the day he's due to retire - by his overly officious, anal retentive superiors (played to oily perfection by Larry Bryggman and just slightly over-the-top by Stephen Dillane) to provide Bishop's back story. Of course, the end result is foregone: The Agency has decided to allow China to kill Bishop in 24 hours.

Muir's interrogation, of course, is more to provide exposition for the moviegoer than for the Agency's edification (it's oddly - and conveniently - interrupted before its dramatic denouement). In flashbacks, we see how Muir is impressed by Bishop's grace under fire in an assassination attempt gone awry. (As we eventually see, Muir and Bishop are both luminescently bullet-proof - they jog jauntily through bullet-riddled streets just to grab a bite to eat.)

The two reunite in West Germany a year later (on the soundtrack: a Dire Straits song from the '80s; movie intelligence apparently doesn't match the Agency's crack research). There, Bishop questions Muir's icy, unfeeling use of others as disposable pawns in international gamesmanship, but nonetheless refuses to shy away from the Agency's blithely bitter brutality.

Nine years later, in Beirut (Norris Spencer's production design brilliantly creates a semi-civilized wasteland of rubble, despair, perpetual barbed wire and incongruous niceties like wicker restaurant chairs), Tom falls in love with Elizabeth Hadley (Catherine McCormack), a rabble-rousing do-gooder - or do-badder, depending on your (or Muir's) politics. Finally, Bishop wrests himself from Muir's pragmatically cynical internationalism.

Director Tony Scott is an old hand at superficial flash and dash, but every little flourish he employs here - black-and-white freeze-frames, fast-motion establishing shots of the sort that have grown tiresome on ``Survivor'' - is annoying. He's much better off just sticking to straightforward storytelling, particularly when Michael Frost Beckner, not coincidentally the creator of the TV series ``The Agency,'' has created a fairly solid narrative. (Granted, smart stories aren't usually the case in Scott's films, which generally need the extra dazzle and juice.)

Pitt's not really given much to do aside from lay on his charisma - or, beneath layers of makeup, look abjectly beaten. Redford, on the other hand, gives an effectively minimalist performance (far better than in the recent ``Last Castle,'' where he just looked blankly blank), exuding cool confidence and wry bemusement while his covert peregrinations come to his charge's rescue. That Redford more or less discovered Pitt in ``A River Runs Through It'' only adds resonance to their scenes together.

Dan Mindel's chillily grungy cinematography flatters no one in aspiring for brittle realism, but it can also be annoying to sit through. Harry Gregson-Williams' score is at its best when propulsively urgent and at its worst when it layers on overly romantic angelic choirs. ``Spy Game'' represents a case where the technical support often threatens to overwhelm the story, but doesn't, ultimately because the story is interesting enough to carry the day on its own merits.

``SPY GAME''

(Rated R: language, some violence and brief sexuality)

The stars: Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack, Stephen Dillane, Larry Bryggman, Marianne Jean-Baptiste.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Tony Scott. Written by Michael Frost Beckner and David Arata, based on Beckner's story. Produced by Douglas Wick and Marc Abraham. Released by Universal.

Running time: Two hours, one minute.

Playing: Citywide .

Our rating: Three stars

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Robert Redford, left, and Brad Pitt play the CIA against itself in ``Spy Game.''