The Quiet American
This is the second stab at adapting Graham Greene's semi-autobiographical novel for the screen. The first, Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1958 film starring Audie Murphy and Michael Redgrave, corrupted Greene's criticism of U.S. intervention in Indochina into a staunchly pro-American film. Philip Noyce's take, on the other hand, stays truer to the author's cynical outlook on American foreign policy in Southeast Asia while forging a compelling political thriller from the story of an apathetic British journalist and the love triangle between him, his much younger Vietnamese lover and the film's shadowy eponymous character. Michael Caine slips effortlessly into the role of Thomas Fowler, a stand-in for Greene, who himself was a freelance journalist in Saigon in the early 1950s and witness to the conflict between French colonial forces and the Viet Minh and the American attempt to introduce a "third force" to defeat the communist regime. Brendan Fraser once again demonstrates he's better than the silly Hollywood fare in which he usually participates, playing democratic idealist Alden Pyle with the perfect blend of naïveté and polite, righteous indignation. When Pyle's presence in Saigon grows from a mere threat to Fowler's personal life (professing his love for Fowler's mistress, Phuong) to one of greater implications, he faces a tough decision with grave moral implications to drop his declaration of neutrality and get involved.
- June 5, 2007
DVD Extras
A good episode of the Sundance Channel's Anatomy of a Scene, examining the film's recreation of a 1952 terrorist attack in Saigon's central square; a 20th century timeline of Vietnam with some sloppy editing and factual errors; a brief featurette that makes some short-sighted parallels to the current situation in Iraq; three original reviews of the novel from when it was published in 1955; and a DVD-ROM study guide.