Review of The Parallax View (1974) by Josh G — 03 Oct 2008

The Parallax View is a movie where conspiracy theory piles up on conspiracy theory until the whole world is implicated in some bizarre plot to control every event in the world. Or something like that.

The movie begins with smiling Independent Senator Carroll: the perfect father, the perfect husband, and the perfect candidate for President of the United States. That is, until he is assassinated within the confines of Seattle's Space Needle. The alleged killer is accidentally killed himself, and a literal shadowy government agency (analogous to the Warren Commission?) tells the American public that the killer was acting alone and, ahem, don't believe any of those conspiracy theories.

Ah, but journalist Joseph Frady (Beatty) doesn't buy that, and finds himself covertly joining secret organizations and following people around in an effort to find out what is really going on. What are they not telling us? Despite the tense atmosphere that should go along with this, I was fairly bored with the film and couldn't understand why. Vincent Canby, of the New York Times, does a pretty good job of summing it up, though:

"The thrills don't mount as the film goes on. They don't even accumulate. Once they are experienced, they dissolve so thoroughly that by the end you're likely to feel as cheated as I did.".

I think that that's probably true. One suspicious thing happens, and then it's over. It doesn't lead into the next suspicious thing -- they're set up as completely separate events with no relation to each other save for the entity that may or may not be behind it all.

Pakula has some very beautiful shots in this movie -- a scene near the end with a cart driving haphazardly amongst a group of red-white-and-blue tables is particularly interesting. But aside from that, The Parallax View is running on nothing -- running, always running, that's for sure -- but with no real driving force behind it.

The ending is effective, but could have been placed pretty much anywhere in the movie and not lost any of its punch. Everything else seems like an arbitrary lead-up to the end. More events or less could have taken place over the course of the film and it wouldn't have mattered, because the only really important parts of the movie were the beginning and end.

The Parallax View is an enjoyable movie, once you begin to understand what it was trying to say, but it could have been done much better, unfortunately.