Review of The Quiet American on Filmviews.net
Year2002 ReviewerChris Docker
A beautiful, haunting adaptation of Graham Greene's novel and, in the faithfulness of its adaptation of Graham Greene's predictions, a remarkable indictment of the U.S.'s involvement in VietNam (although also carrying the novel's failing through with it). Michael Caine is an indolent British reporter stringing out his term in pre-U.S. VietNam as long as possible. He falls in love with a young woman, which impels him to do a bit more work to justify prolonging his stay. As he is drawn in, he discovers that all is not as it seems. What is left out (as was in the novel, written by a lapsed Catholic) is the role the Roman Catholic Church played in U.S. interference in VietNam, the suicide protests of Buddhist monks, the attempt to install a Roman Catholic top dog on a Buddhist country that could have recovered from the Communist-French conflict left to its own devices. But much of that came later.
Rating: 9/10;