The Quiet American
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Movie Reviews of The Quiet American
Movie Review: Brilliant and Troubling
Summary: 5 Stars
WE are in Vietnam in the 1950s. Here is Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine), a middle-aged foreign correspondent for "The Times", whose life is really not too bad at all. He has successfully escaped the greyness of London and a miserable marriage for an easy, well-paid job in an adopted country he loves and the charms of his preposterously young and beautiful mistress, Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yan). But all is not altogether well. For one thing, somewhat ironically with hindsight, his employers are having doubts as to whether Vietnam is a significant enough place to justify the expense of maintaining a correspondent there. And then there is Pyle (Brendan Fraser), a young, idealistic rather Brahminical Bostonian self-styled eye-doctor who has shown up and is making no secret whatever of his romantic interest in Phuong. Desperate to avoid return to London, Fowler starts to redouble his efforts to look into political developments, notably the sinister new "Third Force" represented by the unattractive General The who is not the French colonial power and not the Communists but whose contempt for human life leaves little to recommend him and whom our idealistic young eye-doctor seems to know...
This is a brilliant film. It's easily the best movie to be based on a Graham Greene novel since "Brighton Rock" and conveys to absolute perfection the anxieties and moral ambivalence of the world that very great writer imagined for us. It's absorbing, exciting and (not a word you can seriously apply to many current American movies this) deep. The central performances by Caine and Fraser are altogether superb.
It's not, however the cast I was most struck by. It must have struck others with the same depression as it did me that the director of entertaining but undistinguished action movies like "Patriot Games and "Clear and Present Danger" not to mention utter garbage like "Sliver" and "The Saint" was once up to making movies as good as "Newsfront". Ah well, we may have thought, it's not the first time someone has started out making really fine intelligent movies only to lose it and end up making pap. And then suddenly Mr Noyce goes and gives us this and "Rabbit Proof Fence". Hurray. Welcome back Philip. No more Tom Clancey adaptations please. You can still make great, intelligent, politically challenging, gripping cinema. So stay with us and make a few more.
Movie Review: Totally entranced
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw The Quiet American, starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser, over the weekend, and I was totally entranced. First of all, Michael Caine has long been a favorite actor of mine. He elevates every piece of material that he performs, and in this film, his portrayal of Thomas Fowler is nuanced by a lifetime of acting, learning, and observing human nature. Caine plays a British journalist reporting from Saigon in the early 50's. Fowler enjoys a rather lazy life, having tea at the Continental Hotel and indulging himself with a beautiful young Vietnamese mistress. Fraser, no slouch himself, especially considering that he must hold his own in plenty of scenes with Caine, plays Alden Pyle, the quiet American of the film's title.
This film has haunted me over the past two days. The movie's central story is one of an older European man in love with an exotic young beauty. He suddenly finds his relationship challenged by an interloper, a clever young American who has quite a bit more to offer. For me, the primary thrust of the film dealt with what one will do to obtain, or retain, what one desires. Both men want the girl, and the film hinges on what each man is willing to do to have her. This tortured triangle is set against the growing unrest in Vietnam, and we all know how THAT conflict went.
There are also many other themes at work in the film: how the girl herself represents Vietnam (locked in a struggle of possession), the way political forces worldwide are often manipulated behind closed doors, and the question of whether ends (no matter how good) justify their means (no matter how bad). Both men seem to metaphorically represent the countries they come from. Oddly, their approaches to the two different conflicts (the fight over the girl and the fight over Vietnam), seem to be polar opposites.
The film is also richly shot and very atmospheric. Fowler's character is in love with Vietnam and, before you finish watching the film, I can almost guarantee that you'll have some interest in visiting it yourself. Pyle's blinding white suit, worn in the final scenes of the film, and the face of Hai Yen Do (who plays the girl in question - Fong), will be mental images you won't be able to shake.
The Quiet American is riveting, well worth the investment of your time, and it will keep you thinking for a while.
Movie Review: At the edge of the abyss
Summary: 5 Stars
Crackling with tension from the opening scenes, this is an outstanding film. Noyce's team responds brilliantly to his direction in this tight drama about pre-American Viet Nam. The film captures the nature of the changing struggle as the almost invisible Viet Minh probe Saigon's defenses. The French, clearly floundering, are minimally represented. The war, the politics, the corruption are merely background to this story of desperate love. Yet all those subdued elements intrude on the three protagonists who must react to them. Love and war are a common theme in many films, but are brought together in this one with uncommon sensitivity. The Viet Nam conflict nearly tore America apart in later years. The time for this film is long past, but the way Noyce has adapted Greene's novel makes it enduring and pertinent today. Michael Caine, as the indifferent British journalist, provides his paramount performance. A superb actor in all his roles, with this one he assumes status among the very best. Given the power of his presence in this film, it might be expected that Brendan Fraser be overshadowed. Yet this rather bumbling character from The Mummy assumes a more confident stance. As the American intruder on both Caine's own love affair and the struggle to restrain the Communist forces, he fulfills the role with unexpected polish. Do Thi Hai Yen, the woman caught up in both the political and personal conflicts, applies a tender counterpoint to the many levels of strife displayed elsewhere in the film. Noyce's use of close-up in many scenes heightens feeling while keeping the characters as the film's focus.
Greene's novel demonstrated how Viet Nam might become a morass of misdirected action. It was, he predicted, not a place for the clumsy. Fraser's role illuminates how prescient Greene was in the book. The withholding of this film by the studio was an error. Noyce's direction is flawless as he portrays the languid journalist becoming alert as he senses Fraser's presence is more than circumstantial. His boldly asserted simple-minded faith in America's ability to solve geopolitical issues by brute-force presence is a message that should have been heeded when the book was published. Hopefully, this film will again confront viewers with that clear message. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Movie Review: "It's Not That Easy To Remain Uninvolved" ~ Making Choices And Accepting The Consequences
Summary: 5 Stars
'The Quiet American' is a hauntingly tragic and beautifully told tale offering a glimpse of what was once the exotic 'Pearl of the Orient,' Vietnam prior to the death and devastation of the war-torn '60's. The opening sequence of Saigon at night draws the viewer into its flickering lights and surreal landscape and doesn't release you until the very end when we once again return to the same harbor setting leaving the beleaguered country to its inevitable fate.
The year is 1952 and France is the colonial power battling the Chinese Communist for control of the country. For the most part the fighting is taking place in remote villages so life in the city goes on as though nothing is wrong. Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) is a married, middle-aged British correspondent living in Saigon with a lovely young Vietnamese girl named Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen). While they both have feelings for each other their relationship appears doomed to failure because Thomas' wife back in England refuses to grant him a divorce. The life and feelings shared betweem Thomas and Phuong can only be temporal in nature as the possiblity of being recalled back to London by his employer looms forever on the horizon.
However things soon change with a sudden arrival of Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) a young American who falls in love with Phuong and wishes to marry her and take her back to the states.
Their love triangle allegorically tells the story of Vietnam in microcosm. Phuong is Vietnam, fragile, lovely and without hope. Thomas (Europe) longs to possess her, but offers no hope for a brighter and secure future. Alden (America) seems to be her one hope for a long and happy life if she could only escape to the U.S.A. Alas, first impressions and heartfelt promises are not always what they seem to be. Alden has alterative motives in Vietnam that jeporadize not only his life but Phuong's hope of a new life.
Michael Caine is brilliant as the self-absorbed Englishman who finally comes to grips with reality and realizes "sooner or later one has to take sides if one is to remain human" and Do Thi Hai Yen is an absolute dream as the enchanting Phoung. Also wonderful performances by Brendan Fraser and Tz Ma as Hinh.
Movie Review: What a pity Greene did not live to see it
Summary: 5 Stars
Graham Greene is one of the most filmed authors ever. His books and stories have been made into more than fifty movies, television episodes and mini-series. This one is the best.
The Quiet American is a perfect blend of intelligent and atmospheric film-making. Parts of it are achingly beautiful. As so commonly with Greene, the themes are the complexity of life, the ambiguity of moral choices and the fallibility of ordinary people; in addition, he has targeted the destructive role of American involvement in the region now known as Vietnam - even though, rather incredibly, the book was published ten years before the entry of U.S. troops.
Phillip Noyce is a very talented director who has made some excellent movies, but this one far surpasses them all. His masterly direction of the climax and the bomb scene, in my opinion, elevates him to the ranks of the great directors. The cast is also extremely well chosen. The principals - Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Tzi Ma and Do Thi Hai Yen - are all perfect for their parts (Caine probably deserved the Oscar for the year, although Adrien Brody was extremely good), and the extras are all extremely convincing - most notably the actual war victims who use their genuine injuries to make their roles frighteningly authentic.
Certainly the film script has made substantial changes to the book. In particular, the character of Alden Pyle has been changed from a naïve, innocent and largely forgettable bumbler to a more complex, less innocent, highly memorable but still essentially naïve character. In fact, almost all the changes appear to be improvements. I know Greene was very fussy about adaptations of his books and very critical of changes made by the film-makers, but I strongly suspect he would have approved of these changes, which not only make the work far more film-worthy but amplify the relationships between the characters, without doing any violence to Greene's concerns - unlike the earlier film with Audie Murphy, which he hated.
The DVD support material is very good, especially the anatomy of the bomb scene, which gives a clear idea (if it isn't already obvious) how much careful thought went into making this film.