Review of The Conversation (1974) by Thomas B — 06 May 2018

**.

I hate to say it, but I found 'The Conversation' to be really quite boring. Your enjoyment of this movie will hinder on a number of things, but there's no doubt that it's a product of its time. In today's age, we've seen this story a hundred times, and we've seen it done much, much better. But it's not just the fact that it's dated, far from it. It's simply uninteresting for a large proportion of the time. You get a sense that Coppola attempted to give Hackman's character a backstory, but it just doesn't work - you don't care. It didn't do the film any favours that I watched Brian De Palma's infinitely more interesting and far better executed 'Blow Out' recently; which just highlights the problems with Coppola's movie in far greater detail. Whereas that film had an uneasiness - a constant tension - running throughout, and a main character you could get behind and sympathise with, this film never really picks up any momentum, because the story simply isn't executed very well. It has some merit, of course, and for 1974, the concept of wire-tapping and the consequences of technology were pretty big themes. However, its biggest sin was not being able to make an interesting concept into an interesting or entertaining movie.