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Warren Beatty,
Warren Beatty,
Hume Cronyn,
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Alan J. Pakula,
Alan J. Pakula
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: Paramount
: Political Thriller, Neo Noir
: 102 min.
: English, French
: English
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While the Watergate scandal filled the headlines, Alan J. Pakula's 1974 thriller took its inspiration from the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination. Journalist Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) misses witnessing the assassination of a senator at Seattle's Space Needle, but his newswoman former girlfriend Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss) was there. Even after a government commission concludes that it was a freak lone assassin, Lee tells Joe that she fears for her life since other witnesses keep dying. After she too turns up dead, Joe investigates, travelling to the small town where another witness has mysteriously expired. Stumbling on a corporate identity for the killers, Joe decides to dig deeper by infiltrating the Parallax Corporation as one of their hired assassins. As Joe becomes increasingly isolated in his assumed identity, he discovers what Parallax is all about -- but Parallax knows all about Joe too. Made between Klute (1971) and All the President's Men (1976), The Parallax View was the second film in Pakula's "paranoia" trilogy; it proved too dark even for a 1974 audience that embraced such other challenging films of that year as The Godfather, Part II and Chinatown, making The Parallax View the sole flop of Pakula's trilogy. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
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| "This is an annoucement, not a press conference."
by Lastcrackerjack
April 14, 2006 - 6:24 PM PDT
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0 out of 1 members found this review helpful
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Coming off "Klute", which was a masterpiece in paranoid suspense, director Alan J. Pakula does generate a mood of stylish intrigue in the first hour with plenty of tantalizing Kennedy assassination story threads. The lighting by Gordon Willis is drenched in shadow and vivid in making us feel that someone is definitely out to get us.
One more positive is Warren Beatty's energetic performance, playing an idealist who finally gets the story right, but is unable to prove his suspicions until it's too late. The "down" ending is another hallmark of the era.
A film of its day, most of the story feels completely ludicrous now. That senators could be getting wacked out without broader suspicion or investigation was likely a comment on the assassinations of the '60s which to many - like Beatty, who served as a producer here - seemed to have a sinister common thread.
Based on what we now know about Enron or the White House, the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful conspiracy capable of maintaining an elaborate cover-up is something not even an idiot would accept any more. In the early '70s, it made for some good popcorn entertainment. "The Parallax View" lacks any three dimensional characters or believability, a really disappointing contrast to "Klute".
The chief reason to see the film is the audacious Parallax recruitment film, where Beatty is screened a montage of rapidly accelerating images juxtaposed with words like "mother" and "country" and monitored for his reaction. This was the work of documentary producer Chuck Braverman. A similar montage was employed for the opening credits of "Soylent Green" and - set to sweeping classical music - were quite vogue at the time.
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| I was bored
by johnnyclock
March 15, 2005 - 8:42 PM PST
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0 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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| I found this to be too slow, too implausible in its details, too vague in its thrust. It is a very dark film, though that is probably a plus, not a minus. Hume Cronyn is good in a small part. There is one clever scene on an airplane (honestly, I found most of the scenes boring or irrelevant). There is, perhaps, an interesting twist at the end. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 7.04)
70 Votes
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