The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)

Set in 1974, nestled in the heart of southern California, childhood friends Christopher Boyce and Daulton Lee find themselves enmeshed in a clandestine world of secrets and deception. Brought up in an upper-middle-class milieu, the two friends have taken strikingly different paths in life. Christopher, the picture of responsibility, and Daulton, a drug user and dealer with a criminal record, maintain a friendship that remains hidden from those around them, including Chris's unsuspecting parents. When Christopher's disillusionment with his religious studies leads to a hasty exit from seminary school, his ex-FBI father secures him a job at defence contractor RTX. A swift ascent from mailroom boy to handling security communications places Christopher at the heart of top-secret CIA communiqués. These documents reveal the agency's covert interventions in foreign governments, shattering his faith in his country and planting the seeds of rebellion. Frustrated with the government's actions and disillusioned by the lackadaisical security at RTX, Christopher decides to expose these clandestine operations. Believing that public exposure would yield no results, he opts for a daring move: selling secret government information to the Soviet Union. Christopher enlists Daulton, whose interest is piqued by the prospect of a hefty paycheck, to be his courier to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. The narrative unfolds as a sometimes comic, sometimes chilling tale of amateur espionage. Christopher is acutely aware of the precariousness of their position, steeped as they are in a world they barely understand. As they navigate this treacherous landscape, the volatile Daulton, driven by greed and drug-induced recklessness, may prove to be a wildcard that Christopher hadn't accounted for. "The Falcon and the Snowman" is a riveting journey into the depths of betrayal and consequence. It's a testament to the tremendous fallout that awaits when idealism collides with reality, and a stark reminder that other governments may be as corrupt as the one Christopher believes he's betraying. The story of Christopher Boyce and Daulton Lee is a true tale of All-American men who stepped far beyond the bounds of their ordinary lives, with profound consequences for themselves and their families.

The Falcon and the Snowman is a crime movie featuring Timothy Hutton and directed by John Schlesinger.

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