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The Quiet American

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United Kingdom, Germany, United States · 2002
Rated R · 1h 41m
Director Phillip Noyce
Starring Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Do Thi Hai Yen, Tzi Ma
Genre Drama, Romance, Thriller

In 1950s French Indochina, war is raging, and an English journalist named Thomas Fowler comes to report on the events. A love triangle emerges between Fowler, a beautiful Vietnamese woman named Phuong, and an idealistic American named Alden Pyle, supposedly there for ‘aid work’. The three sink deeper into the chaotic war-torn world, where deception and intrigue run rampant.

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What are critics saying?

100

Washington Post by Ann Hornaday

The narrative is lean, the supporting performances are solid, and, perhaps most crucially, the emotional tone of the piece is spot-on.

90

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

Thanks to Caine's subtly nuanced performance, there's a deeper dimension to everything. He's snappily ironic at times, sometimes amazingly delicate, always engaging.

50

New York Daily News by Jami Bernard

The movie adds nothing to the political dialogue, and the love story is mood-killingly sad. The lure of the exotic can be deceptive, it says. The moody, murky atmosphere leaves nothing clear except that mixed intentions will always yield mixed results.

90

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

Ever since the movie made a brief appearance late last year to qualify for Oscar consideration, Mr. Caine's performance has been hailed as the best of his career, and surely that's true.

100

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

Star Michael Caine, who gives one of the great, inescapably moving performances in a career filled with them, based his character on personal impressions of the late author. And Greene's lifelong concern with moral ambiguity gives this film a texture and complexity that movies don't usually achieve.

80

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

Even as The Quiet American loses focus and urgency, Caine's performance keeps the doomed spirit of Greene's hero intact.

90

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

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.

80

Variety by Todd McCarthy

One of Caine's meatiest roles, and he handles it with power, humanity and remarkable emotional fluidity; from the opening moments, an enormous amount comes through his eyes alone.

88

Boston Globe by Ty Burr

The key to why the new ''American'' is so good and so true, though, is Brendan Fraser as the title character.

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