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Spies Like Us
Directed by	John Landis
Produced by	George Folsey Jr., Brian Grazer
Written by	Dan Aykroyd Dave Thomas (story) Lowell Ganz (screenplay) Babaloo Mandel (screenplay)
Starring	Chevy Chase Dan Aykroyd Donna Dixon
Music by	Elmer Bernstein Paul McCartney (title song)
Distributed by	Warner Brothers
Release date(s)	December 6, 1985
Running time	102 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US$22,000,000 (est.)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Spies Like Us is the name of a 1985 comedy film directed by John Landis, starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, and Donna Dixon. The movie presents the comic adventures of two novice intelligence agents sent to the Soviet Union.

Dan Aykroyd plays Austin Millbarge, a geekish, basement-dwelling codebreaker for the Pentagon, who aspires to escape his under-respected job to become a secret agent. Chase is Emmett Fitz-Hume, a wisecracking pencil pusher who takes the foreign service exam under peer pressure. Millbarge and Fitz-Hume meet during the test, on which Fitz-Hume is openly attempting to cheat.

Fitz-Hume cheats on the test

Needing expendable agents to act as decoys to draw attention away from a more advanced team, the unnamed intelligence agency decides to enlist the two and promote them to the ranks of GLG20, Foreign Service Operatives, and put them through minimal training, then send them on an undefined mission into Soviet Central Asia. Meanwhile, professional agents are well on their way to reaching the real objective: the overtaking of a mobile SS-50 ICBM launcher.

The main team takes a loss, leaving only Dixon's character (Boyer), while Millbarge and Fitz-Hume miraculously escape enemy traps, attacks, and other certain perils. Eventually the bumbling pair team up with Boyer.

Russian ICBM just before launch

In the Pamir Mountains of the Tadzhik Soviet Socialist Republic, the team overpowers a mobile missile guard unit, and following orders in real-time from the intelligence agency (operating from a military bunker located deep under an abandoned drive-in theater), they begin to operate the launcher. At the end of their instructions, the vehicle launches the ICBM into space, presumably targeting the United States. Thinking they have begun a nuclear war, the American agents and their Soviets counterparts pair up to have sex before the world ends.

Meanwhile, the military commander at the operations bunker (Steve Forrest, looking much like the similarly psychotic General Ripper from Dr. Strangelove) initiates the conversion of the drive-in theater to expose what is hidden beneath the screens and ticket booth: a huge black-op "Star Wars"-esque megawatt laser and collector/emitter screen. The purpose of sending the GLG20 team to launch a Soviet ICBM is then exposed as a means to test this anti-ballistic missile system. Unfortunately, the laser fails to intercept the nuclear missile, which is heading for the U.S. and will almost certainly trigger a global thermonuclear war. In another parallel to Dr. Strangelove, the general insists they are prepared to survive underground for years "to preserve the American way of life."

Meanwhile back in the Soviet Union, guilt-ridden and horrified at the thought of having launched a nuclear missile at their own country, the American spies (and their new Soviet friends) use Millbarge's technical knowledge to force a malfunction in the launcher vehicle and transmit junk instructions to the traveling missile (source programmable guidance), sending it off into space where it detonates harmlessly. Immediately afterwards, the underground bunker back at the drive-in theater is stormed by U.S. Army Rangers, and the intelligence and military officials involved in the covert operation are arrested. For their part, Millbarge, Fitz-Hume, and Boyer go on to become nuclear disarmament negotiators, playing a nuclear version of Risk-meets-Trivial Pursuit against their Soviet friends, who lose Eastern Europe when they miss the correct answer to "What Little Richard song was the title of a Jayne Mansfield film ("The Girl Can't Help It".)

• Chevy Chase - Emmett Fitz-Hume
• Dan Aykroyd - Austin Millbarge
• Steve Forrest - General Sline
• Donna Dixon - Karen Boyer
• Bruce Davison - Ruby
• Bernie Casey - Colonel Rhombus
• William Prince - Keyes
• Tom Hatten - General Miegs
• Frank Oz - Test Monitor
• Charles McKeown - Jerry Hadley
• Terry Gilliam - Dr. Imhaus
• Matt Frewer - Soldier #2
• Bob Hope - Himself
• Joel Coen - Drive-In Security
• Sam Raimi - Drive-In Security
• Michael Apted - Ace Tomato Agent
• B.B. King - Ace Tomato Agent
• Larry Cohen - Ace Tomato Agent
• Vanessa Angel - Russian rocket crew member
• Edwin Newman - Himself

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

The drive-in theater is converted into a Star Wars ABM installation.

• The film is an homage to the Road to... films. Bob Hope, who starred in them with Bing Crosby, makes a cameo as himself.
• The film contains a large number of cameos by filmmakers: Frank Oz, who frequently appears in Landis movies, administers the aptitude test early in the picture. Doctors in Pakistan were played by director Terry Gilliam, special effects makers Ray Harryhausen and Derek Meddings, and cinematographer Robert Paynter. The Drive-In used as a front for the secret base is guarded by directors Sam Raimi, Joel Coen and Michael Apted, singer B.B. King and writer/producer Larry Cohen.
• The "SS-50" was a fictional missile. But at the time the movie was made, the Soviets actually did possess a mobile rocket with the range necessary to reach the United States: the SS-16 Sinner (from 1976 till 1986, more than 50 of these missiles were made).
• The theme song was performed by Paul McCartney, his last US Top 10 hit to date.
• The target of the missile strike on the United States in the movie is revealed to be Detroit, Michigan. This is spelled in Cyrillic characters on the upper right of the control panel display on the ICBM launcher when the missile is being guided away from its target. However, in a later scene, the missile is seen heading down toward New York.
• In the Tajik cabin (set in Norway in real life) in which Fitz-Hume is interrogated, there were film posters of Reds and Doctor Zhivago.
• A map for the Battlefield 2 mod Point of Existence was made called Spies Like Us. It is set in the Pamir Mountains and includes the SS-50 as a control point.

• Spies Like Us at the Internet Movie Database

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