Spies Like Us (1985) on Netflix
Austin Millbarge breaks codes in a Pentagon basement; Emmett Fitz-Hume, an envoy's son, cheats on the foreign service exam. Both are recruited and sent to Pakistan.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.4/1055,321 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes35%
Trailer
Plot summary
Austin Millbarge cracks codes in a Pentagon basement and wants a field job instead. He has had one night to study for the foreign service exam, since his supervisor withheld the notice of it. Emmett Fitz-Hume, an envoy's son, takes the exam under pressure from his peers and cheats on it after his attempt to bribe the test monitor and his supervisor fails. The two meet during the test. Ruby and Keyes, at the Defense Intelligence Agency, enlist both men, promote them to GLG-20 operatives, rush them through minimal survival training and send them toward Pakistan and Soviet Central Asia on an undefined mission.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Spies Like Us (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Originally written by Aykroyd and Dave Thomas to star Aykroyd and John Belushi at Universal, the script went into turnaround following Belushi's 1982 death and was later picked up by Warner Bros. Pictures, starring Aykroyd and Chase.
- The title song Spies Like Us was written and performed by Paul McCartney and peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in early 1986. It was McCartney's last song to reach the top ten in the US until FourFiveSeconds with Rihanna and Kanye West in 2015.
- Landis has stated that he feels Spies Like Us is a terrible song, but that he could not say no to McCartney and Warner Bros.
- A plot point in the film is that funding for the covert operation came from deceiving Congress, which thinks the funds are for more stealth bombers. On November 22, 1988, three years after the film's release, the first stealth bomber was unveiled to the public.
- Other cameos include directors Terry Gilliam, Sam Raimi, Costa-Gavras, Martin Brest, Frank Oz and Joel Coen, musician B. B. King, and visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen.
