![]() Doesn't seem like much of a war now, but it was. "I sailed the Adriatic with a movie star at the helm. "You served with Colonel Donovan in the O.S.S., didn't you, sir?" This is one of my favorite exchanges, taking place between Cliff Robertson and John Houseman's characters: This is an eminently quotable film, particularly the spectacular and oft-imitated speech of Max von Sydow's that "it will happen this way." and the outstanding conversation that closes the film. I also appreciate the fact that as 3 Days of the Condor comes to a close, its final moments are more intensely anchored around exceptionally well-crafted dialogue rather than the usual thriller theatrics. While the traditional tactic these days is to lean on hypercaffeinated quick-cutting and overwrought choreography, this struggle is raw, unflinching, and devastatingly intense. The agony of this sort of fight to the death radiates in a way that I very rarely see on-screen. To make another nod to Hitchcock, the fight between Condor and a company assassin is reminiscent of the strangling in Torn Curtain. The strength of the cast, direction, and the Academy Award-winning editing are combined such a force that even something as mundane as an elevator changing floors can be unnervingly tense.Ĭondor isn't an action film posing as a thriller, but it does boast one particularly masterfully executed brawl. Seeing Condor so hopelessly outmanned and outgunned ekes out most of the tension at first, but the real adrenaline rush comes from seeing him rise to match these looming threats, and then more through wit and ingenuity rather than judo and gunplay. ![]() He barely knows his way around a handgun, and yet he's trapped in one of the most populous cities the world over: one teeming with millions of unfamiliar faces, and even those he's come to trust could pull out a pistol and gun him down. A Bourne type is trained to be suspicious of seemingly everyone and everything, and he's equipped to handle it. No, he's the wrong man from the classic Hitchcock mold, and that makes the inescapable sense of paranoia that much more intense. Condor isn't cut from the same cloth as Jason Bourne.a seasoned killer with years of intense government training under his belt. This isn't a spy potboiler brimming with megaton explosions, feverish shootouts, a parade of broken necks, and dizzying car chases. 3 Days of the Condor isn't the carbon copy one might expect, though, and the subdued approach director Sydney Pollack takes from there is the film's greatest strength. The skeleton of the story does admittedly sound rather routine in the here and now, especially after adding in the obligatory young woman who's ensnared in the conspiracy and inevitably settles into the role of love interest (played marvelously here by Faye Dunaway). With a slew of gunmen (including Max von Sydow's Joubert) in pursuit, Condor can rely only on his wits and a desperate need to survive. After an attempt on his life goes wrong, Condor is framed as a rogue agent. It turns out that Condor's independent research threatens to expose a secret cabal within the C.I.A., and the wrong people have been rattled. Condor is so shaken that he can barely remember his codename, let alone protocol for these sorts of situations, but he's assured that the company is on it and that he'll be out of harm's way within the hour. Shellshocked, Turner fumbles his way to a payphone, paranoid that each uneasy step is bringing him that much closer to an assassin's crosshairs. He returns to find the office peppered with bullet holes and a string of lifeless, blood-spattered corpses scattered across the floor. He's a reader, skulking through books and magazines for any coded hint of leaks or conspiracies, and the only mission he's faced with today is picking up lunch for his coworkers. ![]() complete with a reasonably daunting codename - Condor - but his game isn't murder or espionage. Turner (Robert Redford) may be an operative in the C.I.A. "No need to believe in either side or any side.
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