the falcon and the snowman be a superb example of an anti 80 film . while many other film of the decade in general lack substance and this film be pure substance . there nothing stylish or fake or superfluous about it . it boast two superb performance represent timothy hutton and sean penn a lifelong friend christopher boyce and daulton lee and respectively . hutton and penn and and tom cruise be a triumvirate of early 80 actor who all look head to much big and good thing ( all 3 star in tap ) . while penn and cruise popularity soar and hutton have be largely forget about and and that a shame . actually and hutton be the first of the 3 to win an oscar for support role in ordinary people in 1980 and but i think his performance in this movie be even more outstanding . hutton really capture the post vietnam war rebelliousness in his character chris boyce . a failed seminary school student and chris have a love hate relationship with his father and well play by the great character actor pat hingle . the scene where chris quote the poem his father thought he would long forget be a particularly powerful one . chris get job at dept . of defense and use his hatred of u. s. govt and it foreign policy to sell seemingly useless plan of old project to the soviet . he get his buddy daulton and a hyper drug deal self server and in on it to be the courier of the project plan on microfilm . while chris be do it base on his belief and daulton be do it strictly for the money . the soviet liaison be excellently play by david suchet . penn and suchet have a real quirky chemistry and it a kind of funny set of exchange between them . but and make no mistake and this film be anything but that . it be a serious character study about pessimism and malaise and paranoia and mistrust . again and the lead make this film . hutton deliver a brilliantly understated performance a chris and a rather smart young man who have so much potential . penn and a usual and do a tremendous characterization a daulton and a pathetic loser who act before he think and and most of the time doesn not think at all . the end of this fact base film be very sadden on several level . a truly powerful character study .