Review of Three Days of the Condor (1975) by Scott J — 07 Aug 2014

"Three Days of the Condor" is the kind of movie that features French assassins, fretful civilian girls, shady CIA operatives, and a handsome leading man that we can trust because he's played by a movie star. It's '70s espionage, and it's seriously good. The film is not dated, and it isn't trying to make cheap entertainment out of the paranoid years that Richard Nixon set up for us - it's instead an intelligent, suspenseful, and richly fun political thriller that grabs ahold of our jacket collars and keeps us in close quarters, just to be safe. You wouldn't expect any less from Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford, after all.

Redford is Joe Turner, a CIA employee. He isn't a spy, nor a head honcho that calls out orders with a Shakespearian cool - he, along with six other people, works in a small, New York based office whose speciality is to read magazines, newspapers, and books from around the world in hopes to find a hidden meaning or code that pertains to national interests.

Then, one day, he finds a seemingly low-end book that is translated into only three languages: Spanish, Dutch, and Arabic. As this is a suspicion, particularly because the novel in question is hardly notable, he reports it, then goes out to lunch. But when he comes back, he finds that every single one of his co-workers has been shot dead.

Frantic, he calls CIA headquarters, hoping to be brought into safety. But when he arrives at the planned meeting, he is shot at like a lion on a Safari hunt. Knowing he cannot trust anyone, he kidnaps a woman, Kathy (Faye Dunaway), in order to have a hideout that won't put him in automatic danger. But, he is being chased by some dirty CIA members, and the CIA never quits. And I mean never.

"Three Days of the Condor" was highly relevant in 1975, but in 2014 it can be enjoyed as a joy ride that features the finest of movie stars working with the finest of scripts working with the finest of directors. It's like a James Bond movie, minus the unrealistic suavity, plus the espionage action. Dunaway isn't a Bond girl, but she has some dialogue that makes her equal to Redford as Honor Blackman was to Sean Connery. And we love her for it.

The plot does get murky, but it's easy to forgive. We are given so many terrific, terrifying scenes (this is one of the few films where the beginning is the best part), and Redford is such a root-worthy hero that it becomes a thriller that finds itself in a maze but still entertains us anyway.

But what I took away from the film is how truly believable it was that even the CIA, which is such a trustworthy agency, could shelter employees with such shattered morals. The CIA has never had a scandal as big as Watergate, but Watergate, after all, was a display that the government can't always be trusted. Pollack's direction is so assured that we don't doubt that.

"Three Days of the Condor" takes itself seriously, but I had more fun than I most likely should have. Simply put, espionage thrillers just aren't as fun these days - the '70s had them in a chokehold.