hyped garbage

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Although the first few episodes seemed slow-paced to my wife and me, overall, we really enjoyed this series. It gave us some real insight as to how the spy business operates. The brutality of the Russians was particularly memorable along with how bureaucratic the CIA is. The actress who played Sandy Grimes was excellent. She even looked a lot like the real Sandy Grimes. We both wanted to smash the Aldrich Ames character in the face. Highly recommended.

I can't understand the good reviews for this show. I agreed with most reviewed it honestly. I had to laugh at the person that gave it 5 stars noting a geographical error. Is that really the reason you gave it a 5? That is like people that leave negative reviews for a product on Amazon that was received broken during shipment. That is not an actual evaluation of the product! I agree completely with the viewer that wrote "If Lifetime got a hold of an AMC script." But even the script is badly written. I didn't find any of the actors to be believable in any way. I don't buy that Rick even got into the CIA to begin with, my God he's so transparent and shifty it's like a farce of some sort. And why the heck would his girlfriend be SO EXTREMELY upset when he confesses that he doesn't work at the state department that he is actually CIA? Seriously? HE IS SUPPOSED TO LIE TO YOU...IT'S KIND OF HIS JOB! It's like she has no concept of national security which is not believable when she herself works at an embassy. I am interested to know just how historically accurate this show is considering how amateurish these CIA agents seem to be. The intensity of invasive vetting, background checks, physical and mental examination then continues through employment should have weeded people like Rick out. In fact aside from the president, the CIA has the most intense hiring process in America. Also, Grimes home life felt forced with the rebellious teen and the understanding and supportive husband. Her husband is so syrupy sweet I could barely stand it and do we believe that at this point in their marriage she even has to keep saying "You know I can't tell you that."

SPOILERS AHEAD Wow...so I started watching this under-promoted show back in January when ABC was airing it in prime-time before they quickly shelved it and buried it in the summer on Sunday afternoons (thank god for DVR's). At first, I thought this was excellent, interesting and downright shocking that it was airing on a non-cable network as it seemed much more likely to be on AMC or HBO.But then as time went on, it quickly devolved into tripe and relied on typical made up BS to enhance the 'drama' such as: the plucky investigator that no one believes at first, the husband that doesn't fully understand why his wife never comes home from work, the 'enemy' at first co-worker who eventually gains trust, admiration and then friendship, etc. And don't get me started on the snidely whiplash super creepy over the top performance by Paul Rhys as Alrich Ames. Jeez, they should have arrested him immediately just for looking creepily guilty And it closes on one of the most unintentionally funny scenes I have ever seen (the bookstore signing hug)...wow. Hello Lifetime! Now, I also have a huge issue on how they treated the subject matter. The assets in question are Russian KGB, generals, officials, that decided, for whatever reason INCLUDING greed to sell their countries secrets to the US. Aldrich Ames sells the names of these 'assets' to the Russians who then interrogate and execute them. Aldrich Ames is a traitor and deserved to be tried and convicted but SO ARE THE ASSETS HE SOLD OUT!!! They were traitors to their own country and rather than portraying them as such, they are practically treated as saints.In life there are never clear cut black and white issues and this mini series could have shown that but instead took the easy formulaic way out. And the shame is that they were close on the execution

ABC, just go on back to the mental junk food of half hour long strings of juvenile sexual innuendos peppered with near-continuous canned laughter. Based on a mere 2 episodes, I give The Assets an "8" for the potential of what might have been as compared to what the major networks are more comfortably determined to feed us. I was hopeful it would continue to hold my attention.A couple of criticisms; the flashbacks seemed a little too frequent and hard to tell when they ended. And regarding Grimes' home life scenes; I didn't care for the stereotypical sullen teen, and Grimes' repeated line to her husband "you know I can't talk about that", I wondered how soon that would get tiresome. Those minor annoyances might have smoothed out in future episodes, BUT WE'LL NEVER KNOW! Hey Netflix, HBO, somebody, anybody! The Ames spy scandal is worthy of quality dramatization, in spite of the fact that, yes, we know how it turned out (Titanic, Lincoln, any WWII movie - we knew in advance how those turned out). There are so many true stories out there so worthy of being dramatized; read about Douglas McKiernan, the first CIA agent killed in the line of duty - an incredible story!