THE QUIET AMERICAN
"Noyce's rendering of the novel is far more faithful than Joseph Mankiewicz's
1958 version, which--to Greene's horror--made the American heroic.
Noyce's version is haunted by the war yet to come, a war that would
shatter (though only temporarily, it now seems) many of America's
illusions about itself. Far from being a period piece, this love story/murder
mystery/political thriller couldn't seem more timely." --David
Ansen, Newsweek
"Fowler may be the richest character of Mr. Caine's screen career.
Slipping into his skin with an effortless grace, this great English
actor gives a performance of astonishing understatement whose tone
wavers delicately between irony and sadness...The movie is ultimately
more interested in the characters' relationships than in their politics,
and it does a superb job of evoking the psychological world of Graham
Greene in which the truth of any situation tends to be hidden and
riddled with ambiguities." --Stephen
Holden, The New York Times
"A beautiful melancholy hovers over the tragic players in 'The Quiet
American,' Phillip Noyce's superbly controlled, passionate adaptation
of Graham Greene's 1955 novel about political and romantic treachery
in 1950s Vietnam...Noyce's movie works because the director (who previously
juggled thrills and political intrigue in 'Patriot Games' and 'Clear
and Present Danger') trusts himself, and his audience, to understand
that catastrophe isn't always a matter of loud ideology. Rather, it's
the result of age-old human weakness. And sometimes it's quiet." --Lisa
Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
"In the newly forged national patriotism following 9/11, do audiences
really want to see a movie that depicts the American military as savage
mercenaries? Despite the obvious bad timing, 'The Quiet American'
is highly recommended viewing for its courage, ideas, technical proficiency
and great acting." -- Rex
Reed, The New York Observer
"Beautifully directed by Phillip Noyce, the film is a full experience,
a love story and a murder mystery that expands into a meditation on
the deep deceptions of innocence...Caine, in one of his finest performances,
shows us the desperation beneath Fowler's practiced politeness and
cynicism...What keeps the film from falling into agitprop is precisely
its fairness toward characters who, in heavier hands, might have remained
stock villains (or heroes). " --Peter
Rainer, New York
"'The Quiet American' is a graceful, contemplative film that gradually
and artfully draws us into a world where the personal and the political
get fatally intertwined...Its message (characterized by the novel's
opening Byron quote about an "age of new inventions / For killing
bodies, and for saving souls, / All propagated with the best intentions")
couldn't be more relevant as we get ready to storm into yet another
troubled country very far away."--Kenneth
Turan, The Los Angeles Times |
