movie film review | chris tookey
 
     
     
 

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Tookey's Rating
7 /10
 
Average Rating
9.04 /10
 
Starring
Gene Hackman , John Cazale, Allen Garfield
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Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Written by: Francis Ford Coppola

 
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Released: 1974
   
Genre: DRAMA
THRILLER
   
Origin: US
   
Colour: C
   
Length: 113
 
 


 
Inquisitive bugger (Gene Hackman) believes he may stumbled across an incriminating conversation.
Reviewed by Chris Tookey


Fine acting by Gene Hackman and flashy direction by Francis Ford Coppola enliven this paranoid thriller about an eavesdropping bugging expert. Very much a film of its Watergate period (though it was made before that famous burglary - it was obviously inspired by Antonioni's Blow-Up), it is gripping and technically brilliant. Somewhere along the line, though, the plot loses its way in a forest of repetition, and the hero’s character becomes implausible (for a genius, he’s awfully gullible). This may be why the film has always been more of a hit with critics than audiences.

“I had been terrified by the whole Orwellian dimension of electronic spying and the invasion of privacy when I started writing The Conversation five years ago. I realized a bugging expert was a special breed of man, not just a private eye playing with far-out gadgets.”

(Francis Ford Coppola , 1973)


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