Such a frustrating disappointment

Some things I liked some I did not.

Awesome Movie

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

"Klute" comes from the same director who gave us "The Parallax View" - Alan. J Pakula. The above film is easily in the same league as other early 1970s American cinema. There isn't much in the way of actual graphic violence but the suggestion of violence is clearly there. The film is quite explicit in its sexual content but that is mainly presented in the background. Alan J. Pakula uses dark photography and harsh lighting to excellent effect, especially with the gripping climax. There is a lot of detail to the plot and every scene counts for something. Jane Fonda rightly earned her Oscar for Best Actress - her performance is a convincing and multi- dimensional one. She conveys by turns, feelings of toughness, coldness but also those of vulnerability as the prostitute of the film. Donald Sutherland scored heavily in his role as the police officer who then becomes a private eye. He should have been nominated. Roy Scheider is excellent as the pimp and drug dealer. He doesn't have much screen time but he makes his presence truly known. Charles Cioffi is positively creepy and sinister in his role. The screenplay is an exceptional one. The thing about the dialogue, is that it takes actors and not stars to bring the well developed characters to life and provide some depth. A star simply isn't heavyweight enough for the job. The plot follows the efforts of Donald Sutherland who is employed to locate a missing research scientist. The latter was mixed up with Jane Fonda in the movie and the twists to the tale soon develop. There are a few graphic references to drug use. New York is the ideal setting for the film. We really see the seamy underbelly of the city - just like in "The French Connection" as an obvious example. This is the kind of film that Hollywood has long forgotten how to make - sadly.

This is such a good film because the portrayals are so realistic. Donald Sutherland has been reduced lately to playing quirky bad guys. We forget that early on he was a leading man playing complex characters. In this movie we were exposed to the world of prostitution for one of the first times. Jane Fonda is victimized by a man who is fixated on her. She is involved in the investigation of a disappearance and Sutherland is the cop, Klute, who is brought in to investigate. As they explore her situation, he begins to fall in love with her. He also begins to become invested in her life because other prostitutes are dying at the hand of the monster they are pursuing. While uncomfortable to watch, this is well worth our time to view.

We all like stories with happy endings, and what better ending could there be than the reclaiming of her life and dignity by a "working girl", a prostitute who slept with thousands of men as a source of income while renouncing the very notion of true love? One fateful day, a dashing detective arrives on the scene to investigate a missing person case and changes her life forever. The plot is suspenseful and well-paced, but more than anything else, Klute offers a very positive view of a prostitute, played by Jane Fonda, who we learn is really an aspiring actress. She hasn't had much luck scoring modeling or theater gigs, so what's a girl to do? Why become a prostitute, of course! Is this how it happens? I know that aspiring actresses are sometimes lured into making porn flicks, tricked into believing that doing so might open doors to the mainstream movie world. But do thespians become hookers? Maybe a few of them do. My impression is that they are more likely to become waitresses and the like. It's true that prostitutes earn more money, but is that enough of a lure to forsake the prospect of intimacy in a normal relationship?No matter. Dreams do come true. Knights in shining armor exist who will overlook years of a woman's turning tricks in exchange for hooking up with them. Donald Sutherland seems pretty sincere, but does this ever really happen in reality? I have to ask.

Klute is part of Pakula's Paranoia Trilogy which includes the Parallax View and All the President's Men. Someone on this board compared Klute with The Devil's Own and said the latter was a bad film because Ford and Pitt didn't get along. I hope he was kidding. But you can read my review of that thing some other time.I saw Klute on TCM and will have to get it from Netflix and watch it again. It was so dark I could barely see a thing. And in reading the message board, there were scenes described I never saw due to losing my cable signal. So why review it - well, because it is an excellent film without what I missed, with a perfect performance by Jane Fonda.The plot concerns a private detective (Donald Sutherland) searching for a missing man who winds up working with a part-time call girl (Fonda).Pakula has the atmosphere down pat - dark, murky, low class, and seedy, filled with users and drug addicts. Bree is a fascinating character. Once a full-time call girl, she left the lucrative business after taking a terrible beating from a john. She is now an aspiring actress, using an Irish brogue for a Joan of Arc monologue, auditioning for commercials, etc. She takes hooking jobs because she needs the money. She likes the control she has when she's with paying customers. What she fears is a real, intimate, close relationship. Underneath the hard shell is a vulnerable woman afraid of the dark.Klute (Sutherland) rents an apartment in her building as part of his detective work. He tapes her encounters and follows her, finally approaching her to ask about the missing man, Grunemann. The two become lovers.Sutherland and Fonda give very natural performances, realistic and powerful ones. Both characters in a way have hard shells - Klute seems dispassionate, Bree can be abrasive and angry.There was suspense, but Klute succeeds more as a character study than as a thriller, in my opinion, and as the story of two people from two different worlds being drawn to one another, and what that means for the future.A disturbing film with a thought-provoking ending. I look forward to seeing it again, and let's hope I can make out more in the scenes the next time. For a film that took as long as three hours per day to set the lights, there isn't much.