This is one of my favourite political thrillers of all time. This and Casino are the only two films in which Sharon Stone shows any real acting talent. The film is darkly shot and very moody with some nice, unexpected plot twists. And some storng performances by the suporting cast.
Here's my take. This movie is definitely a B movie (I don't really know what a B movie is, though). Even without decent plot/character development, I still enjoyed the movie.
The part I enjoyed the most is the part another user found disturbing -- the many scenes shot in Italian without subtitles. If you caught the actors facial expressions, vocal tones, or Italian word or two (like Americano), it was like a very fine mist around the plot. I thought this mist made the film palatable by giving it some suspense.
the lack of subtitles in those scenes was maddening. the only possible excuse for locking the most tense moments of dialog away from the viewer is if other characters in the scene also didn't speak Italian and they're trying to recreate that confusion for the audience. but in the final capture scene, 90% of the dialog was in Italian even though the protagonist clearly spoke it. as for the phone booth, i can tepidly agree that locking that away might build suspense because one could argue that we're not supposed to know what is said there anyway, but the fact that he's even having those conversations (and frequently meeting with terrorist members) makes it clear that he's talking about keeping tabs on his friend for the Red Brigade so why not share the whole picture?
sharemy question is... why did they let them go at the end??
"how about... a royal flush!" *loren avedon kicks a cauldron of boiling water into the bad guys*
I think they let them go because they were both Journalists, and they wanted someone to carry the story back to the rest of the world that the Red Brigades were totally committed to their ideological perspective. Even to the point of shooting one of their own for being percieved as a bourgeoisie.
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room. (Dr Strangelove)
Yes, it's certainly the right explanation : they are released because they are journalists : the Red Brigades were craving the publicity, they never had enough of it.
But why not another possibility : the main objective of the Red Brigades being to stop 'Historic Compromise', i.e. national unity coalition between Aldo Moro's Christian Democratic Party and Enrico Berlinguer's Italian Communist Party, they release the Americans because they come to understand after all they have the same objective, if for very different reasons !
I'm also surprised too,of the low rating 5.5,but IMDB rating are far from perfect.
I rated around 7.5
I really enjoyed the film,having no Italian subs kind of sucked.
and only 800 votes.
I rate this one a 9. Thought it was an excellent tension piece. And agree no subtitles made you feel what the characters felt. No control over their fate. Not knowing if the Red Brigrade was going to harm them or not.
shareIt's surely underrated. I think this film has a certain compelling atmosphere and a sense of 'menace lurking around the corner' - something which has a deep resonance for these times. Throughout I felt that any one of the main characters was in mortal danger (and so it was, albeit with an unexpected twist).
Part of the appeal for me (apart, that is, from the presence of the exquisite Valeria Golino) would certainly be the soundtrack, which, combined with brooding cinematography would qualify it, in abstract, as a possible candidate for inclusion into a corpus of great 80's euro-aesthetic thrillers, amongst which 'Diva' comes to mind.
"Don't Trust the Heart - It Wants Your Blood."
the main actor is miscast here,
he brings the movie down a few notches