Review of The Parallax View (1974) by Kenneth L — 24 Aug 2013

This was the second entry in Alan J. Pakula's "paranoia trilogy," and while it's not quite as mature or stylistically sophisticated as All the President's Men, it's definitely the most purely entertaining of the three films, with some truly memorable sequences, including the single best montage in any film (I'm serious).

The story is obviously inspired by 1960s American political assassinations, particularly those of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. Warren Beatty plays a journalist who notices that all of the people who witnessed the murder of a senator a few years earlier have themselves been dying in suspicious circumstances.

Suspecting a conspiracy after his girlfriend is among those to die, he of course investigates and soon finds himself trying to infiltrate a corporation he suspects is really training assassins. Beatty's performance is fine, but this movie is more plot-driven than Klute, and he doesn't really get to develop the character beyond what the plot has him running around doing.

The movie manages to pack some real surprises into its twists and turns, and has a particularly neat little framing device at the beginning and ending of the film that really reinforces the sense of paranoia the movie wants to inculcate.

And while I don't want to spoil anything, the movie really does have the best montage in film history; it's worth watching for that sequence alone. You'll know it when you see it.