I find this film to be one of the most absurdly overrated pieces of garbage of all time. I realize that this movie is highly revered by pseudo intellectual film students that are obsessed with cinematography and anything that has the name "Coppola" attached to it. But for those of us that are NOT elitist film snob wannabe's - a film that has fancy camera angles and the names Coppola and Hackman attached to it does not qualify it as solid entertainment. All the innovative cinematography in the world can't polish this turd. I know this hurts many of you that had some egomaniacal film professor brainwash you into believing this is a "thinking man's masterpiece",
..but wake up and see this movie for what it is.
For starters this film moves at the pace of constipation. I can't ever remember seeing a film that develops at such a horribly boring pace. To make matters worse, the repetition is painful. Harry Caul's paranoid nature is repeatedly beaten into our heads like we viewer's are far too stupid to ever recognize paranoia. Beyond the repeated establishment of his paranoia - the bulk of the film's first 70 minutes is spent watching Harry Caul turn various knobs in effort to dial in clearer dialog on his surveillance tapes, rewinding the tapes over and over again, while listening to the same bits of the conversation over and over again. We get it Coppola, we heard the conversation the first 400 times Hackman played it! If this movie was edited at a pace that didn't put people to sleep, it would have been about 30-40 minutes long and had completely equal impact without losing any relevance.
Then there is the foolish contradiction within Hackman's character. He was so paranoid that no one knew where he lived and he wouldn't even give out his phone number. Even his girlfriend (that he supposedly loved) had no clue where he lived, what his phone number was or even what he did for a living. Yet Hackman had no problem letting his one night stand into his world, ..letting her sleep over in his surveillance lair, among his top secret homemade equipment and precious surveillance tapes?!?!?!? He won't let anyone in his apartment with his jazz records and saxophone, but he'll consent to a party in his top secret work space?!?!?! A party with guests that are made up of his snooping competition and various people he doesn't even know?!?!?! He won't tell the woman he loves where he lives, what his phone number is or what he does for a living yet he will let a woman he just met alone with his precious surveillance tapes and homemade, top secret surveillance equipment while he sleeps?!?!?! Then in the end of the movie Hackman destroys his apartment while looking for a planted bug, doing tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage in a rented apartment. How about renting a new apartment (he had a landlord that violates his privacy anyway)?!?!?! Or better yet, how about NOT having any incriminating conversations in the apartment?!?!?! No one knows where he lived and no one had his phone number how hard would of it been to save the incriminating conversations for when he was outside his apartment walls?!?!?! I mean come on the contradictions in Hackman's character were absurd! This pathetic, ponderous film does have an unexpected twist ending, but even that is accomplished through the use of a cheesy diversionary tactic. The repeated "we're not hurting anybody" line of the conversation is a lame smoke & mirrors way of throwing the viewers off the film's ending. It's the obvious fact that you are "hurting somebody" when you are planning to murder them that makes Coppola's diversionary tactic so incredibly lame. "We aren't hurting anybody, we aren't hurting anybody We are just going to kill my husband", ..LAME! And by the way - how do you make a bloody suffocation look like a car accident? Yes I realize it was 1974, but autopsy was plenty sophisticated at that time, death by suffocation would have been quite evident (suffocation is elementary in an autopsy diagnosis). On top of that you are dealing with a wife of a prominent, wealthy man. She stood a lot to gain by her husband's death, so potential foul play would have been closely examined. Death by suffocation undetected,.......bloody body removed from a big city hotel without suspicion or recognition,.......body then planted into a believable car accident in a big, highly populated city - and no one the wiser. Yea, that's realistic - about as believable as Mission Impossible or Die-hard.
Yes, I suppose that if you are a pompous, self righteous, big headed film student - the cinematography might be enough to entertain you. But I personally could care less about the impressive cinematography if the framework it is applied to is essentially worthless you end up with nothing more than a polished turd. I don't care about pretty colors on a canvas if the painting itself is novice and uninteresting. Nor do I have an interest in listening to the greatest musician on earth if the song being performed sucks (and I am a musician). Virtuosity is pointless if it is only displayed within a context that is impossible to appreciate.
Comparing this movie to the brilliance of "The Godfather I & II" or "Apocalypse Now" is absolutely criminal.
For starters this film moves at the pace of constipation. I can't ever remember seeing a film that develops at such a horribly boring pace. To make matters worse, the repetition is painful. Harry Caul's paranoid nature is repeatedly beaten into our heads like we viewer's are far too stupid to ever recognize paranoia. Beyond the repeated establishment of his paranoia - the bulk of the film's first 70 minutes is spent watching Harry Caul turn various knobs in effort to dial in clearer dialog on his surveillance tapes, rewinding the tapes over and over again, while listening to the same bits of the conversation over and over again. We get it Coppola, we heard the conversation the first 400 times Hackman played it! If this movie was edited at a pace that didn't put people to sleep, it would have been about 30-40 minutes long and had completely equal impact without losing any relevance.
Then there is the foolish contradiction within Hackman's character. He was so paranoid that no one knew where he lived and he wouldn't even give out his phone number. Even his girlfriend (that he supposedly loved) had no clue where he lived, what his phone number was or even what he did for a living. Yet Hackman had no problem letting his one night stand into his world, ..letting her sleep over in his surveillance lair, among his top secret homemade equipment and precious surveillance tapes?!?!?!? He won't let anyone in his apartment with his jazz records and saxophone, but he'll consent to a party in his top secret work space?!?!?! A party with guests that are made up of his snooping competition and various people he doesn't even know?!?!?! He won't tell the woman he loves where he lives, what his phone number is or what he does for a living yet he will let a woman he just met alone with his precious surveillance tapes and homemade, top secret surveillance equipment while he sleeps?!?!?! Then in the end of the movie Hackman destroys his apartment while looking for a planted bug, doing tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage in a rented apartment. How about renting a new apartment (he had a landlord that violates his privacy anyway)?!?!?! Or better yet, how about NOT having any incriminating conversations in the apartment?!?!?! No one knows where he lived and no one had his phone number how hard would of it been to save the incriminating conversations for when he was outside his apartment walls?!?!?! I mean come on the contradictions in Hackman's character were absurd! This pathetic, ponderous film does have an unexpected twist ending, but even that is accomplished through the use of a cheesy diversionary tactic. The repeated "we're not hurting anybody" line of the conversation is a lame smoke & mirrors way of throwing the viewers off the film's ending. It's the obvious fact that you are "hurting somebody" when you are planning to murder them that makes Coppola's diversionary tactic so incredibly lame. "We aren't hurting anybody, we aren't hurting anybody We are just going to kill my husband", ..LAME! And by the way - how do you make a bloody suffocation look like a car accident? Yes I realize it was 1974, but autopsy was plenty sophisticated at that time, death by suffocation would have been quite evident (suffocation is elementary in an autopsy diagnosis). On top of that you are dealing with a wife of a prominent, wealthy man. She stood a lot to gain by her husband's death, so potential foul play would have been closely examined. Death by suffocation undetected,.......bloody body removed from a big city hotel without suspicion or recognition,.......body then planted into a believable car accident in a big, highly populated city - and no one the wiser. Yea, that's realistic - about as believable as Mission Impossible or Die-hard.
Yes, I suppose that if you are a pompous, self righteous, big headed film student - the cinematography might be enough to entertain you. But I personally could care less about the impressive cinematography if the framework it is applied to is essentially worthless you end up with nothing more than a polished turd. I don't care about pretty colors on a canvas if the painting itself is novice and uninteresting. Nor do I have an interest in listening to the greatest musician on earth if the song being performed sucks (and I am a musician). Virtuosity is pointless if it is only displayed within a context that is impossible to appreciate.
Comparing this movie to the brilliance of "The Godfather I & II" or "Apocalypse Now" is absolutely criminal.