Three Days of the Condor (1975)

“Condor is an amateur. He’s lost, unpredictable, perhaps even sentimental. He could fool a professional. Not deliberately, but precisely because he is lost, doesn’t know what to do. Unlike Wicks, who has always been entirely predictable. ” – Joubert

Number of Times Seen – 2 (Cable in the 90’s and 17 Dec 2017)

Brief Synopsis – A young Intelligence researcher working for the CIA returns to the office to find all of his co-workers dead and must try and discover why while he must evade the culprits.

My Take on it – This is a great political thriller because it keeps things moving the whole time and we know only slightly more than the main character, but not enough to understand it all.

Robert Redford is great in the title role as a really smart Intelligence analyst who gets in more trouble than he can handle and must do all he can to try and stay alive.

The way that the story moves along gives us a really enjoyable cat and mouse chase that is constantly on the move.

Many of these scenes keep the viewer on the edge of their seat waiting to see how things will eventually play out.

Faye Dunaway is given an important role as a complete stranger who must be completely relied upon by Redford in order to try and stay one step ahead of the assassins after him.

Her character also has her own issues that she must deal with as she tries to decide whether to help him or not.

I found it really interesting that many of the themes in this film are even more relevant today than they were when this came out 40 years ago.

That is nit to say that people were completely unaware of these issues, but the past four decades have helped us all get a better grasp of certain issues that weren’t even in most people’s minds when this came out.

Bottom Line – Redford is great in this role as a really smart intelligence analyst that gets in too much over his head and must do all he can to keep himself alive. The cat and mouse game of this film works extremely well and many of the scenes keep the viewer in the edge of their seat. Dunaway is perfectly cast as the complete stranger that Redford must rely on in order to evade the murders and stay alive.  Very interesting how many of the themes depicted today are even more relevant and understandable by most people than they were at the time when this came out  40 years ago. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – In her biography “Looking for Gatsby”, Faye Dunaway says of this film: “Now I’m sorry but the idea of being kidnapped and ravaged by Robert Redford was anything but frightening. [At one point, after Redford temporarily left the set and director Pollack took over his role for the scene where Dunaway’s character might be attacked] the cameras were rolling, I was in position, and suddenly Sydney lunged at me, growling ‘I AM GOING TO GET YOU!’. I’m tied up at this point, unable to get away or move much at all, but Sydney kept moving toward me, his eyes glaring at me as he went on detailing all the horrible things he was going to do to me, and let me tell you, Sydney has an inventive mind. He is also a great actor, and he scared the hell out of me. Sydney kept the camera rolling and he was relentless”.  (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy

_______________________________________

Check out my *updated* movie stats here

To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link

To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)

Here is a link to my movie index A-Z