Solely focusing on pushing the plot forward, the film's main character is heavily underdeveloped, and one never fully understands the character's drive and motive power - just as Pakula has intended. The lack of character depth emphazises the film's overall cynicism as does the outstanding cinematography, reminiscent of Antonioni: Stunning scenery is filmed in long shots, keeping the audience emotional afar. A gloomy depiction of the paranoia that ruled America in the beginning of the 70's.

Astonishingly well-shot; DP Gordon Willis practically out-Antonionis Antonioni with his masterful, architectural and overall thrillingly unconventional sense of framing, making extensive use of empty spaces. The sparse use of music is superb as well, lending an uniquely chilling air to the picture. Of course the film is necessarily exaggerated, but it still contains some undeniable dark truths at its core. I'll take this lean, mean paranoia piece over Coppolla's bloated Conversation any day.

Second-tier 70's American political thriller. Beatty is very good, but the story tends to unravel rather than unfold as it goes along. The first third of the film is fantastic; after that, the story becomes a bit dull instead of becoming tenser and tenser as a great paranoid thriller should. Still, a good watch for fans of the genre/time period.

Warren Beatty is just class, and Pakula fills this with high quality suspense and some brilliant camera stuff. It's still a strange film, though. Like The Conversation, its sound mixing keep you very distant at all times; somehow it's never as if you're there - maybe to strengthen the feeling that you're watching rather than participating. Maybe that's what make these films so unique.

just couldn't bring myself to care, the nemesis is left too vague for too long.

Suspenseful, paranoid political thriller.

Some nice flourishes, and probably deserving of at least one rewatch, but this Watergate-era paranoia-thriller didn't really come together for me as well as a lower-key contemporary work like The Conversation.

That montage was great. Other than that, it's an okay, at times pretty dull, conspiracy flick.

A moody, oppressive atmosphere enhances this pretty cool conspiracy-themed film. The viewer is kept in the dark about a lot of elements, which enhanced the sense of paranoia. Awesome montage as well.

Taut, elegant and cynic. In other words - not bad at all.

Pakula favors long holds of wide master shots, giving the film an almost hypnotic quality at times, especially since the director seems disinterested in scenes of actual action, rushing through them as quickly as possible, which has the misfortune of making them more awkward than they should be. Beatty is in movie star mode here, playing most of his scenes with a sort of perplexed casualness that was his trademark approach in any movie in which he didn't have a major creative investment.

Gordon Willis photo+montage+general paranoia

Hysterical ending, but I would have preferred a bit more insight into the conspiracy.

Emblematic of 70s American filmmaking, The Parallax View is replete with the unlikely coupling of fabulous acting and horrible hair. Memorable envelope structure and an ambivalent ending that seems to perfectly capture the themes it stood for, The Parallax View stares at itself through the barrel of a gun of its own curious design.

Since The Parallax View doesn't have an excellent script like All the President's Men, it's rather fortunate that it's sparser, allowing for some really good scenes that are nearly silent and owe their strength to Pakula's directing and Gordon Willis's cinematography. Anyway this is maybe the most paranoid of the bunch of paranoia movies, but it's taut and has a great atmosphere.

# 798

Conspiracy thrillers don't get any better than this. A notorious narcissist like Warren Beatty is the perfect star for a paranoia epic, too

Great, under-appreciated 70's political thriller that holds up today in a way most of the quiet conspiracy films do not. Needs to be reintroduced to a new generation, and could easily be remade today. Beatty is kickass in a lcaonic way, with some cool fights and chases has he tracks a shadowy organization. Great ending that will piss you off. I like it most for its blaring lack of a constant underscore/soundtrack like most action thriller today, which over-engineer the sound. this has a ta

Don't be fooled by the summary. This "thriller" packs as much punch as a wet diaper. Boring, boring, boring.

First of all, this film has THE MOST EFFECTIVE MONTAGE I have ever witnessed (sorry, Eisenstein), worth the cost of admission/OOP DVD alone. The movie, as a whole, is bleak and depressing, with interesting visual flourishes that only insist the world is depraved and ready to cave in on poor Beatty. Unfortunately, scenes that should be more suspenseful either come off as boring as paint drying or the ending to a Dukes-of-Hazzard ep. Still underrated, besides.

How the fuck is this on theyshoot? The only things I liked were the idea behind the title and the brainwashing sequence, other than that it was quite predictable and at times it even felt like a B movie.

Twisty, kind of interesting, but predictably bleak. The 'reprogramming' sequence was, dare I say, kind of cool.