THE PARALLAX VIEW

This is the second film in Alan J Pakula's excellent 'paranoia trilogy' (released three years after 'Klute' and two years before 'All The President's Men').  Like those other two films, this one excels in generating an air of dread and quiet menace.  It oozes out of every pore right from the pre-credit sequence in which a US Senator is assassinated, in the spectacular setting of Seattle's Space Needle.

Trying to uncover the truth behind that assassination, some three years later, is Warren Beatty, playing a somewhat chaotic reporter. 

Despite narrowly escaping death on three separate occasions, all very well staged in their different ways, and uncovering a plot to kill another US Senator, Beatty's character for no very good reason chooses not to involve any law enforcement agencies.  He may have something in his past to explain this aversion but we never get to learn what this might be or indeed anything much about him.

For sure he is not the world's most competent journalist, since he fails to take the basic step of making a copy of all he has discovered, to be opened upon his death. 

Because yes, spoiler alert, this film does not end happily, Beatty being neatly set up as the fall guy by the mysterious Parallax Corporation he has been investigating.  And so, a bit disappointingly for a conspiracy thriller, we end the film no wiser as to who is behind the assassinations and what their plan is, if any.

There are a few moments of humour involving a small town deputy who's not the brightest, but the conclusion of the film, which is neatly symmetric with the opening, is a downer, in keeping with the overall pessimistic tone.  Maybe that explains why, despite a positive reception from the critics, this film didn't do well at the box office.

Don't let that put you off though, it is a top notch film of its type.

As a bonus, there's a strange sequence midway when Beatty, trying to infiltrate the Parallax Corporation, is exposed to a film containing all manner of weird subliminal imagery.

RATING: ✓✓ Catch It If You Can