The Conversation Rating: Release Date: 24 June, 2003 Retail Price: $9.98 OUR Price: $9.98 You SAVE: $0.00! Cast: Gene Hackman John Cazale Harrison Ford Hackman Complete Cast (16 total)

The Conversation Reviews

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Coppola's finest
This is meticulous filmmaking, and it succeeds.

The film begins with a faraway scene, leading into a public square and leading in turn into a broken conversation, and an everyday, but somehow interesting, one at that (because of how it's filmed and edited).

This leads into a fascinating story about this conversation and possibly the greatest character studies ever developed in film, in my opinion, that of a careful wiretapper named Harry Caul, played by Gene Hackman. He is quite neurotic, and maybe even paranoid, but definitely eccentric.

As Coppola puts it, he could've taken the side of principle, or he could've taken the side of the eavesdropper in this film, and he decided to take the perspective of the voyeur, with fascinating results. Beyond the greater scope of the ethics of privacy, and the question of when to step in to possibly stop something horrible, the viewer will delight in how originally this story is told, in cryptic fragments.

This film has one of those plots that is impossible to describe with justice without seeing and too good to even reveal with spoiler warnings.

The actors, crew, and the director all seem to be in accord. The result is seamless. I consider this an essential, must-see film, and it is better than The Godfather or Apocalypse Now.

Very good movie!
Gene Hackman plays a surveillance expert who feels a murder may be committed because of a conversation he caught on tape. He's somewhat religious, a point made in the film and his conscience is bothering him. In the past, a family was murdered that he watched. I admit I found it slow during the first half but worth watching for the second half. The last 20 minutes or so is especially good. It also has a very young Harrison Ford. Three years before Star Wars. One reason I watched this movie is because it was an Academy Award Nominee for Best Picture.

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