The Quiet American (2002)

"I can't say what made me fall in love with Vietnam - that a woman's voice can drug you; that everything is so intense. The colors, the taste, even the rain. Nothing like the filthy rain in London. They say whatever you're looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived. The smell: that's the first thing that hits you, promising everything in exchange for your soul. And the heat. Your shirt is straightaway a rag. You can hardly remember your name, or what you came to escape from. But at night, there's a breeze. The river is beautiful. You could be forgiven for thinking there was no war; that the gunshots were fireworks; that only pleasure matters. A pipe of opium, or the touch of a girl who might tell you she loves you. And then, something happens, as you knew it would. And nothing can ever be the same again."

Thus begins Philip Noyce's The Quiet American, starring Michael Caine as Thomas Fowler, a world-weary foreign correspondent stationed in Saigon, and Brendan Fraser as Alden Pyle, a young and idealist CIA agent working undercover to defeat the communist movement in the north. The year is 1951, and the French still control Viet Nam. Ho Chi Minh's communist forces are gaining ground, though. The French are losing their hold. But other people don't want the communists to take over Viet Nam. The Americans want to set up another government in the south to take over from the French. And that's where Pyle comes in. He's working to set up a third party, not French, not communist, who can take over when the French decide to leave. Pyle wants to establish a democracy in Viet Nam, and he doesn't seem too worried about how many people get killed along the way, as long as there's a democracy. Fowler asks him one of the most obvious questions: "What happens if you give them a democracy and they vote for Ho Chi Minh?" Would the Americans allow that? Pyle doesn't know the answer. But slowly, his belief in what he's doing begins to crumble as the body county begins to rise. Meanwhile, Fowler is beginning to think that Pyle and the Americans need to be stopped, not for the good of the French but for the good of the Viet Namese. He arranges with an associate who is connected with the communist underground to arrange a meeting with Pyle at a restaurant. Pyle never makes it there. Sadly, removing Pyle won't, as we all know, stop the Americans from getting involved in Viet Nam. It would take us another twenty years and over 50,000 American lives to learn that lesson.

But The Quiet American isn't really about any of this. While all of this political intrigue has been going on - and there's a lot of it - a love triangle has also been in the works between Fowler, his girlfriend Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), and Pyle. Fowler and Phuong live together. Fowler would love to marry her, but he can't. He's already married, and his wife won't grant him a divorce. Phuong's mercenary sister (Pham Thi Mai Hoa) doesn't like this situation one bit. She wants to get Phuong married to one of the rich foreigners, so there will be someone to take care of the family financially. And Pyle seems like just the man to do it. And he doesn't need a lot of encouragement. He's more than willing to steal Phuong away from Fowler, to save her from the corrupt Englishman. In Pyle's mind saving a country and saving a girl are one and the same thing. Of course, he's very gentlemanly about it. He even asks Fowler ahead of time if it would be okay for him to steal Phuong away. Fowler, thinking the guy is a few fries short of a Happy Meal, tells him to go ahead and try. So Pyle tries. And he succeeds, much to Fowler's great dismay. All of which throws Fowler's subsequent actions into a different light. Does he set Pyle up because of his political beliefs? Or does he do it because Pyle stole Phuong away from him? And are the two even separate? Is it even possible to disconnect the people from the country. Here are two foreigners fighting over a indigenous woman that both want to possess. Is that any different than two foreign governments fighting over a third country that they want to possess? Or is all politics personal, and vice-a-verse?

Based on Graham Greene's 1955 novel of the same title, The Quiet American is beautifully filmed, superbly acted, deliberately paced. For a war movie, there's surprisingly little war going on. Only two very short battle scenes, and one car bombing. The rest is politics and an achingly painful love story. And this gives me another chance to rant and rave about the rating system in this country. The highly secretive MPAA ratings board seems to have no criteria whatsoever for handing out ratings. The Quiet American is rated R. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. It says "for violence and some language." Did you see The Lord of the Rings Trilogy? Then you saw ten times more violence than this film contains. And as for the language, it was nothing compared to the language in most of the utterly inane comedies that come out every year with PG-13 ratings. Personal opinion? Americans don't come up smelling like roses in this film. In fact, America is shown as the country that caused the carnage in Viet Nam. Special news flash for those of you who haven't heard. We did. And I think the ratings board penalized the film for saying so. IMHO. Decide for yourself.

The Quiet American is filmed in color and has a running time of 101 minutes.