The Parallax View
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Movie Reviews of The Parallax View
Movie Review: aging well
Summary: 5 Stars
This film was chilling when it first came out and has aged well - even into these jaded times. Better than Enemy of the State in my view (which is another favorite).Movie Review: More relevant than ever.
Summary: 5 Stars
Although produced over a quarter of a century ago, "The Parallax View" remains a chilling tale of the sunlit terror of our time.Movie Review: A Political Thriller Well Worth Viewing
Summary: 4 Stars
In my humble opinion the late Alan J. Pakula was the finest suspense director of all time and the think man's answer to Alfred Hitchcock. Now I don't mean to put down the "Master of Suspense," but his movies were made with the sole intention of being entertaining, reguardless of how shallow they may be. Pakula, on the other hand, interweaved with his nail-biting tension meaningful substance-based stories that only added to my appreciation of his films. In fact in most instances it was the political ramifications that spawned from his movies that made them more terrifying than any shower scene or telescopic lens could ever think of being. Take for example All the President's Men. He allowed the picture to slowly build until your stomach's in knots and you leave the theatre more unsettled than you went in.The Parallax View is much the same way. It starts with a political assassination and ends with a twist that even M. Night Shyamalan couldn't have written any better. Warren Beatty stars as a Washington reporter who's witness to the assassination and, like everybody else, doesn't question the government's findings when they rule it was the act of a lone gunman (where have we heard that before?). That is until other witnesses start dying off under mysterious circumstances. But it's not before six of the eighteen, including his ex-girlfriend, die that he is moved to action. He starts prying around, as reporters have a tendancy to do, seeing what he can uncover.
Joe (Beatty) follows a lead to the small town of Salmontail where a seventh witness has gone missing and is now presumed dead. He is, of course, having fallen victim to a fishing accident that drowned him. And it's not long after discovering this that the first attempt on Joe's life is made. This only serves to strengthen his resolve, which he puts to work by applying to a mysterious corporation that may be a front for finding and hiring potential assassins. If this isn't frightening enough for you waiting until you discover the bizarre truth, it's more chilling than anything you can imagine.
Now I don't pretend to be pretentious enough to suggest that everyone's going to be as engaged by this film as I was. It's a very intricate and complex thriller that doesn't allow you to breeze through without being made to think. If you're looking to put your brain on cruise control and relax after a long day's work, and there's nothing wrong with that, than you're looking in the wrong place. This is not the kind of movie you can simply wander in and out of, because it flows at a very particular pace that to break it up would only be doing yourself a disservice.
Beatty is superb in his performance and, being as he's the only notable name in front of the camera, is asked to carry much of the movie. There's seldom a scene that goes without him being in it, and by doing this we see the proceedings through his eyes. It's a very effect and absorbing technique that makes the audience a part of the story rather than merely observing it. We're never allowed to get ahead of our protagnoist, putting us on the same rollercoast ride of revelations that he's on.
I hate to overemphasize the impact of the film's conclusion, but if you lose patience just remember, the ending changes the tone of everything that proceeded it. This is a classic thriller.
Movie Review: The Not So Lone Gunman is Revealed
Summary: 4 Stars
After the Warren Commission report came out, Hollywood decided to make films on their theory of the Kennedy assassination. This is disguised version of that. Joe Brady (Warren Beatty) is a second rate reporter for a third rate Seattle newspaper. A prominent Senator is making his bid for President at the Seattle Spaceneedle but is murdered by a pair of gunmen. One by one everyone at the event dies. The deaths are reasonable but the coincidence is not. When a friend of Joe's comes up dead, Joe decides to look into her conspiracy theory.
Joe goes to a remote fishing village where a Judge drowned. It was obvious that there was something more to the drowning than meets the eye. When the Sheriff tries to kill Joe, it becomes evident that he killed the judge. Joe goes to the sheriff's home and discovers documents lead him to the Parallax Corporation.
Next Joe goes to find one of the few living witnesses to the assassination, Austin Tucker (William Daniels). Austin takes Joe out on his yacht. During the trip a bomb explodes and kills all on board. Well that's what everyone thinks. Joe was blown off the boat and survived.
Joe now focuses on the Parallax Corp. He figures out that they are recruiting assassins and tries to get recruited by them. While out at their offices he sees a familiar face and follows him to the airport. The only thing is that the man does not get on the plane but another political candidate is on the plane. Joe realizes that the man planted a bomb on the plane.
Upon Joe's return, he is given his first Parallax mission. Joe sabotages his mission and goes back to the Parallax Corp where he sees the man again and follows him to the convention center. Another political figure is holding a rehearsal for his fundraiser. Joe sees a rifle. He realizes that another assassination is going to happen but it is too late.
This is an interesting film but fairly unrealistic. The interesting thing about the film is how to interpret what happens with Joe. Is he a good reporter or was he set up from the beginning? This and other questions are deliberately not answered.
This is the first of Alan J Pakula's political films that include Three Days of the Condor and the Oscar winning All the President's Men. The cast is top rate mostly up and coming or established character actors. Hume Cronyn gives a great performance as Joe's editor.
This is a good watch and would recommend either of Pakula's other two films mentioned to make it a double feature or another film that looks at the Kennedy assassination, Executive Action.
DVD EXTRAS: None
Movie Review: The Hero's Journey To Fool
Summary: 4 Stars
Reminds me very much of THE WICKER MAN (released that same year of '74) in that both films chart the nightmarish progress of men who are seeking to uncover a mystery and right a great wrong, who must plunge into disorienting environments where none of the rules they adhered to back in the 'normal world' apply; they can't get their footing, and quickly become controlled by events. By the time they realize their every step has been not just watched but directed from the beginning...it's too late.Warren Beatty's Joe Frady, a minor reporter in the Northwest, begins investigating the deaths of witnesses to a political assassination he'd covered three years before. He stumbles upon literature from The Parallax Corporation, an outfit he comes to believe are clandestinely recruiting & training assassins; he decides to penetrate the group as a 'job applicant', armed with a mass-murderer's psych-test responses and a false identity. He has made a slight but fatal error in judgment, however, for Parallax are in the business of identifying and grooming fall guys - custom-built, designer patsies to draw attention from their trained cadre of actual assassins during the deed, then to be killed in the ensuing melee. Ingeniously, Parallax carefully select appropriate moody-loner backgrounds that will satisfy official inquiries into the murder that the killer was a certified strange-o, thus acting alone.
The first half of PARALLAX plays like a standard macho action picture: barroom brawls, car chases, grouchy editors, redneck cops, sexually forthright women swarming over the studly maverick hero. Stay with it, however. The second half is obviously the movie Beatty, Pakula and Gordon Willis were after - stark, overwhelmingly visual, mountingly claustrophic yet set in vastness (every interior set is like an aircraft hangar; even the catwalk goes on forever). The car chase bravado of the first hour is long forgotten by this point, with Beatty assuming the holy-fool status of Edward Woodward's stiff-necked policeman in THE WICKER MAN. While it's true the two halves of this film never do fit together comfortably, the nightcap of this double feature ranks among the best moviemaking of the 1970s.