THE QUIET AMERICAN
Directed by: Phillip Noyce.
Produced by: William Horberg.
Written by: Christopher Hampton & Robert Schenkkan, based on the novel by Graham Greene.
Director of Photography: Christopher Doyle.
Edited by: John Scott.
Music by: Craig Armstrong.
Released by: Miramax.
Country of Origin: USA/Germany/Australia. 101 min. Rated: R.
With: Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser & Do Thi Hai Yen.

DVD Features: Languages. Commentary by: Noyce, Caine, Fraser, Ahrenberg, Horberg, Hampton, Actor Tzi Ma, Executive Producer Sydney Pollack & Interpreter and Advisor Tran An Hua. Additional Footage: Anatomy of a Scene (Sundance Channel) and Original Featurette. Vietnam Timeline. Original Book Reviews.

An idealistic notion that rescuing a beautiful Vietnamese woman can also save her war-torn country drives two men to vie for her affections in 1952 Saigon. Cynical and aloof London Times correspondent Thomas Fowler (Caine) has taken a young American aid officer, Bostonian Alden Pye (Brendan), under his wing. Soon after meeting Fowler’s much younger mistress, a former dance hall girl named Phuong (Yen), Pye confesses his love and tries to woo her away with the dream of coming to America–an offer the married Fowler can’t provide. Meanwhile, fighting escalates, with the French readily blaming the Communists for civilian massacres. Despite the setting, the political upheaval has little dimension. The film provides no insight into the Vietnamese fight for independence, let alone its internal struggle with communism, and why the American government felt there was so much at stake in this Cold War backwater. And the relationship between docile Phoung and her suitors remains too undeveloped to feel anything more than what it is--opportunistic, especially since Phoung can barely speak English. Her character is so stereotypical that you might expect her to say, “Me so horny.” Without the romantic and historic heft, it is only Caine’s meticulous performance--at once charming, then threatening--and Fraser’s earnestness that hold the film together.

DVD Features: The Vietnam timeline is a helpful background summary. Caine’s commentary offers fascinating anecdotes on his Korean War experience and counters the charge that the film is anti-American. But even The New Republic’s 1956 book review, “The Blundering Ineffectual American,” criticizes “The thinness of all the characters except Fowler.” KT
August 5, 2003