It's not how you play the game. It's how the game plays you.

It's not how you play the game... There was a time when CIA operative Nathen Muir (Robert Redford) and his protege Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) were inseperable, travelling the world, from Vietnam to Beirut, in a profession fraught with danger and uncertainty. But that was years ago. Now on the brink of retirement from the agentcy, Muir learns that Bishop has gone rogue. His one-time protege has been jailed in Bejing on espionage charges after attempting to break a female prisoner out of China, the women who came between them years before. But as time begins to run out for Bishop, Muir decides to take on his most dangerous and personal mission ever.