THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974)

It only seems that time has tamed Alan J. Pakula’s paradigmatic post-‘60s paranoid political thriller from heebie-jeebies to giggles.  Truth is, wiseguys like Richard Condon with THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE/’62 (later in WINTER KILLS/’79) and Terry Southern with DR. STRANGELOVE/’64 were already hip to all the threats & absurdities so dutifully spelled out here.  A shaggy Warren Beatty, even more vocally constipated than usual (possibly due to crisis rewrites amid a writers’ strike), is the iconoclastic reporter who stumbles thru the looking glass conspiracy that’s ‘taking out’ everyone who was nearby when a Senator/Presidential candidate was assassinated.  The film structured as a series of interviews that make Beatty less reporter than unknowing angel-of-death.  But when he’s reported dead, he grabs the opportunity (and a false identity) to enlist with the conspirators and take down these agents of chaos from the inside.  Pakula brings his over-composed shooting style, elegant as only Gordon Willis’s lighting & graduated grain can make it, and pulls off a beaut of a slow burn suspense segment (suitcase; bomb; passenger jet), then makes the mistake of reusing the technique at the climax.  On the way, sinking to the single worst bit of filmmaking in his entire career with a good ol’ boy bar fight out of a '70s Burt Reynolds film, spreading all thru the tavern to add fake local color, breakable 'stained-glass' plastic partitions and cute elderly tourists.  Audience pandering you expect in a Burt Reynolds’ film, but something Pakula has little aptitude for.*

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  Pakula much happier on his next film, grounded by the realism of ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN/’76.  OR:  As mentioned above, MANCHURIAN and STRANGELOVE.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-manchurian-candidate-1962.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Then again, PARALLAX might work/might hold up better as a larky Burt Reynolds ‘70s pic that takes an unexpected dark turn throwing Reynolds off his game.