Three Days of the Condor 1976, Rated R Paramount Home Video

Buy it from

Starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway.

You're spending the night at someone else's house, in this case it was my parent's place, it's late and you're bored, so you rummage through their video collection to see if there's anything to watch. I had the choice of Three Days of the Condor, some German film about World War II with English subtitles, or any number of '70's British sit-coms that had been taped off of PBS, and so here we are.

This movie, starring Robert Redford, tries to be a suspenseful political thriller, and succeeds to some degree, but lets everything go for naught, as this film ends without any problem solving ending; thus while the movie actually, physically ends, and the credits roll, we are left with many an untied string dangling before us.

Granted the plot is revealed in very minute means--literally one word here and there changes everything--but even when you understand completely, you still are left to question, "but what happened in the end?" Redford is a C.I.A. employee who discovers something he shouldn't have, and consequently his unit is terminated. He escapes the hit because he is out buying food; who would've ever thought being 'out to lunch' could have a good thing?

From there he's on the lam, the Hitchcockian innocent man on the run, looking for answers that never present themselves. Other than the complete lacking of a satisfying ending, Three Days of the Condor has some trouble because it never really decides who the bad guy is. My father argues that everyone in the movie other than Redford is bad and that is precisely what point the film is trying make, but I just can't logically accept this possibility. Had this have been the case, I feel assured that the director, Sydney Pollack, would've called attention to it in some manner, which he doesn't, and so we are back to step one.

A new angle: maybe the bad guy in Three Days of the Condor is the person who masterminded the whole conspiracy, the individual responsible for taking out the contract on Redford's C.I.A. unit, but hit a road block here as well when I realized that this person doesn't have any more than two minutes of screen time, and is killed by a man other than Redford. That doesn't fit either, leaving me perplexed.

While I try not to create formulas for different movie genres, I have to say that adventure films such as this generally have one character who the hero is trying to beat. Once that character, the bad guy, is defeated, our hero sighs, and looks forward to his/her returning to normal. As Redford strolls off camera for the last time, it still has not been established that he can return to his own home and have a good night of sleep; there are still contracts out on his life!

In essence, the film makers have created a movie where the viewers are to decide what happens next. In my opinion, this is cheap. Cheap of the film makers to do, and cheap to the viewers like me who aren't interested in deciding what will or will not happen to the hero, but in watching was does happen to him. With an ending as weak, unfulfilling, and open as this, Three Days of the Condor does not leave you with a good taste in your mouth.

Even though the tension and suspense throughout most of the film is good, it seems like a wasted effort as it never builds to anything. I could not, in good faith, recommend this film to anyone.