3dayscondor

Stories about virtual nobodies caught up in extraordinary situations fascinate me. When those
nobodies also discover that people are inexplicably trying to kill them, that makes it even better.
Throw in spies, conspiracy, and European agents and boy oh boy! There’s no faster way to get
me in a movie theatre.

Sydney Pollack’s classic, “3 Days of the Condor,” is one of the original postwar espionage and
conspiracy thrillers. Starring Robert Redford at the height of his popularity and the already famous
Faye Dunaway, the film tells the story of a CIA analyst, played by Redford, who returns from lunch
one day to find everyone in his office has been murdered. But the killers aren’t through yet.
They’re coming for him, and he has no idea why.

The nice thing about this film is its age, and the filmmaking mentality that went with it. Pollack does
not give the viewer much advance notice before he springs a trap on a character, and in doing so,
keeps the audience as tense and confused as Redford. Every now and then it seems that we’re
one step ahead of the main character, but in actuality we are just in synch with what he’s figuring
out.

Cliff Robertson plays the CIA Director responsible for Redford. Redford, whose emergency
codename is Condor, begins to believe that Robertson cannot be trusted, but then again he does
not know who to trust. Max Von Sydow delivers an amazingly sinister yet understated performance
as a professional European assassin.

The beautiful aspect of this film as compared to modern spy and conspiracy films is the complete
lack of fantasy and a sense of true grit and realism. Assassins in films today, for example, are
always flashy and unconventional experts that know fifty martial arts styles, use throwing knives and
collect mementos from their victims. They are so showy and idiosyncratic there is no way they
could blend into the crowd. Sydow disappears into the streets and shadows. He is a truly invisible
threat and comes off as a more realistic assassin than modern film killers.

The film is a little slower in places than modern audiences are used to, and the scenes with
Robertson that get into the exact nature of the situation with the CIA are sometimes vague. Like
Redford, the viewer is never completely sure what is going on, only that the hero is in mortal
danger. Dunaway gives a credible performance as the accidental hostage that Redford is forced to
take to protect himself, though her inclusion in the story sets up the biggest hit to the film’s quality.

The writers decided that just because a female is involved, the main character has to get it on with
her, even if it is so contrived it’s unbelievable. It’s the fastest case of Stockholm syndrome I’ve ever
seen. Frankly, it should be classified as rape, and yet, as the way the film plays it, it…well…isn’t.
Either way, it’s the biggest drawback in the film.

Everything else is extremely interesting and pleasantly understated. A truly thrilling thriller that
keeps the viewer questioning right up to the end, “What’s going to happen to Condor?”