The Committee to Nuke Elysium

For a large portion of the American/Western/advanced-industrial film audience, travel might be the activity in which geopolitics most noticeably intrudes on their lives — in the inconvenience of borders, passports, languages, currencies, customs. But none of that fazes the spy. He either circumvents restrictions entirely or he comes equipped with the tools he needs to pass through them. He doesn’t wait in line unless he’s in disguise.

What’s the first thing the spy does after arriving in a new city? You and I haul our bags to the hotel and stand shifting our weight while a bored clerk pecks at a keyboard; the spy is led briskly to an all-white room where he’s left alone with a safety deposit box. Inside the box: multiple passports, a wad of cash in different currencies, a gun with a silencer, an envelope with the name of a contact — everything he needs to navigate his new surroundings. If we see his hotel, it’s luxurious. If we see him on a plane, he’s either flying it himself or it’s a private jet. We are repeatedly shown — more often, or at least more indelibly, than in the books some of these stories are based on — that the elements of travel we ourselves find exhausting and stressful have been magically made easy for the spy.3 The spy never worries about not understanding a language; whatever it is, he already speaks it, and fluently, with no trace of an accent. Instead of sitting around in train stations and dealing with subway platforms, something he’ll do only if it’s part of a chase, the spy procures a car (who knows how) or a helicopter, or a speedboat, or whatever vehicle he needs, which he always knows how to operate expertly, even if it’s a Soviet tank. And you’d better believe he knows his way around at 100 miles an hour — he’ll take shortcuts the locals haven’t discovered yet. None of your panicked on-the-fly deciphering of Parisian road signs in your rented Renault Twingo.

When you and I pack for a trip, we’re so preemptively defeated by the thought of weather and strange places that we take crushable hats and wicking layers and comfort-fit pants with legs that zip off at the knee. The spy, whether he’s stylish like Bond or casual like Jason Bourne, never looks like he’s traveling. But rain or shine, he always has just the right outfit. That may be why, whereas we stick to tourist areas and look in a guidebook to figure out where to have dinner, the spy can go anywhere he wants. He strolls into the classiest and most dangerous bars, the finest and grimiest restaurants, the ritziest and seediest casinos.