Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Michael Caine, who had previously won two Best Supporting Actor Oscars, was up for Best Actor for his role in The Quiet American. It was an incredibly steep year, with Jack Nicholson up for About Schmidt, Nicolas Cage for Adaptation, and Daniel Day-Lewis for Gangs of New York. I'll never forget the tears in Michael Caine's eyes when the one candidate who shouldn't have even been nominated was called to the podium: Adrien Brody for The Pianist.For that reason alone, you should rent The Quiet American. Michael Caine puts his whole heart in to the film, and as usual, he's the reason the film is at all memorable. It's a tense romance during wartime in 1950s Saigon. Michael Caine's mistress, the beautiful Do Thi Hai Yen, captures Brendan Fraser's eye when he comes to Vietnam. While much of the film is a love triangle—but who would really look twice at Brendan Fraser when they're with Michael Caine?—an equal portion of the film is a film about the events leading up to the Vietnam war. Director Phillip Noyce has created a beautiful modern classic, one that isn't grizzly or upsetting to watch. It flows seamlessly, with captivating cinematography to show Saigon as a romantic city, rather than a terrifying warzone. For some very good acting, as well an intensely dramatic story, rent this film for a special and memorable evening.

In 1958, Hollywood made Graham Greene's novel, "The Quiet American", into a movie. However, despite the title, the film had very, very little to do with Greene's book. His original story was about a CIA operative who came to French Indochina and naively thought that if the US backed a third force, one neither aligned with the Colonials or the Communists, then they could achieve peace and stability in the country. Greene's story is about his prediction that ultimately such a plan was doomed but instead of directly saying that, the story ultimately involved the operative, a British correspondent and a Vietnamese woman who both men loved. In the 1958 film, almost NONE of this was present and the message was completely reversed...that Vietnam NEEDED American involvement! The story was so changed and so corrupted that the film ended up being a total mess...and I hated it.Now with this 2002 version, Greene's original theme has been restored and the film is essentially the Greene story. Sure a few minor changes were made (such as the ending) but the overall story is something Greene would probably approve of if he was alive to see the picture.Instead of explaining the novel or the 2002 film, I'd like to concentrate on what I liked about the movie. Of course I appreciate that it is the original story. But I also really liked the acting, direction and music--all really looked good and make for a darned good tale. Overall, well worth seeing and despite Michael Caine being a bit too old for his part, a very good film.

This film requires more than one view to pick up subtleties in the stories. The parallel story of a British reporter, Thomas Fowler, brilliantly portrayed by Michael Caine, his mistress Phuong (Do Thi Ha Yen), and her predicament, as well the overall quagmire that was Indo-China, American interference, and later Vietnam.It is filmed with illusory, tropical backdrops to a scene of hundreds of recently murdered citizens, noted "probably killed by just another faction" by a fellow war correspondent of Fowler's.The sets are realistic without being overwrought (i.e. Platoon). The story has a soft side to Caine's character and his love for Phuong, and the desires of an older man to find final happiness, in a sense. He remarks to Brendan Fraser (Alden Pyle, a US intelligence agent, posing as a physician treating Trychoma), that if he were to lose Phuong it would be the end of his life. The problem is his British wife is Catholic and refuses divorce. This would not be a very valid reason these days. Caine is excellent, giving a voice over finessed view of war torn Vietnam, the tragedies of staged bombings, and his impressions of what "the story behind the story" here is. The visuals are trans formative, and we see a new dictator, General The (secretly being funded by US ), who interviews with Fowler about his visions for a "new Vietnam" Neither the French Colonialists nor the Communists can "fix " it. So what then?.It is nice that this is left as an open ended question leaving the audience to have to THINK. Graham Greene is an excellent author and one must read the book which this film encapsulates. Highly recommended. 10/10.

Graham Greene writes so convincingly that tend to forget that he is a novelist. That is, he writes fiction, not history. His fiction here is that that the US involvement in Vietnam was based upon a CIA operation to murder Saigon civilians and lay the blame on the communists. But, historically speaking, US operations in Vietnam were based upon Washington's calculated policy that had its origins in JFK's pre- presidential Catholic Church support of France's crumbling hold on its Indo-China empire. It was a doomed venture that ignored Vietnam's long fear of China. Here was a Buddhist country, ruled by a Catholic-French supported aristocracy, the brightest star of French pre-WWII imperialism, battling a basically nationalistic, Communist dominated revolution that looked fearfully over its shoulders at their traditional enemy, China, and took no solace from the fact that China was now controlled by a Communist dictatorship. The fact that the US had a treaty with Vietnam was a meaningless excuse because that treaty had been reached with a French/Catholic government which everyone knew was doomed by the post-WWII world-wide drive against imperialism. The CIA in Vietnam, as it had become when JFK chickened out on the US planned Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, was simply JFK supporters' whipping boy, an excuse for his errors. The whole misadventure was intended to forestall his defeat in the post Bay of Pigs presidential election. But as the philosopher said, "He who does not understand history is doomed to repeat it."