The Conversation (1974)
Grade: 65
It is ironic that "The Conversation" was released the same year that Nixon resigned. Nixon was forced out of office largely because he was caught committing crimes on tape. And "The Conversation" is about the consequences of bugging.
Gene Hackman plays a professional wiretapper. He is well-paid getting the scoop on others, but is very secretive, to the point of paranoia, about guarding his own personal life. He tapes a young couple's conversation, and begins to worry about what may happen to them. The man says to the woman, "they'll kill us if they can."
Hackman refuses to turn the tapes in to his client, despite increasing pressure from a young Harrison Ford, who is a cheerless bad guy. In fact, everyone in this movie is cheerless. It is also slow, which is good for character development, except the only character getting screen attention is Hackman, and he doesn't reveal very much.
Women seem to want Hackman. This seems odd, given that he is middle-aged, nerdy, secretive, and withdrawn. He also spies on them. And others spy on him. The theme of everyone under surveillance was better developed, with more humor, in "The Anderson Tapes" (1971) although "The Conversation" has the better cinematography.
John Cazale has a supporting role. The only other movies I've seen him in are the Godfather films, "The Deer Hunter" (1979) and "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975). He sure found his way into good films. I guess his goofy looks kept him from being cast in insipid romantic comedies.
Look fast for Robert Duvall as the shadowy, well-guarded Director.
An interesting film, and a chance to see Shirley (Cindy Williams) without Laverne, and Ford as a laconic villian (rather than a laconic hero). Nominated for best picture, "The Conversation" is a bit overrated. Towards the end it is hard to tell what's real and what's not, but then the surrealist moments are the best in the film.
http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews