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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Quiet American, The
Miramax Films


7.2

based on 39 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 19 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for images of violence and some language

Starring Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Do Thi Hai Yen, Rade Serbedzija, Tzi Ma, Robert Stanton, Holmes Osborne, and Pham Thi Mai Hoa

From the classic novel by Graham Greene comes a murder mystery centered on a love triangle set against the French Indochina War in Vietnam circa 1952. (Miramax)

GENRE(S):	War
WRITTEN BY:	Christopher Hampton Robert Schenkkan Graham Greene (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Phillip Noyce
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 29, 2003 Video: July 29, 2003 Theatrical: November 22, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	100 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / Germany

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Star Michael Caine, who gives one of the great, inescapably moving performances in a career filled with them, based his character on personal impressions of the late author. And Greene's lifelong concern with moral ambiguity gives this film a texture and complexity that movies don't usually achieve.

100

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The narrative is lean, the supporting performances are solid, and, perhaps most crucially, the emotional tone of the piece is spot-on.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

An instant classic and a dramatic beauty, a film that gets us to the core of Greene's chilly, dark and romantic view of the post-war world.

100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

This thoroughly modern movie pulls off a classical feat. It elicits the searing combination of pity and terror that leaves a viewer feeling purged.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is a film with a political point of view, but often its characters lose sight of that, in their fascination with each other and with the girl.

100

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The film reveals itself to be not so much a historical allegory as an Iliad of the heart. It's sad and smart and beautiful and true.

100

Newsweek David Ansen

Far from being a period piece, this love story/murder mystery/political thriller couldn’t seem more timely.

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Noyce's movie pares away the novel's meditations on the futility of war and the importance of religion. It retains the book's thoughtful blending of psychological and moral issues.

100

Time Richard Corliss

As thoughtful as it is handsomely acted. Caine's subtle, bold performance should guarantee him an aisle seat on Oscar night.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The film's real feat may be in its production design, in the sumptuousness and veracity with which it re-creates central Saigon and the Vietnamese countryside of the '50s: an exotic lost world of brothels and opium dens, trishaws and ao-dai dresses, Ming-deco interiors and water buffalos in rice paddies.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Noyce's movie works because the director -- trusts himself, and his audience, to understand that catastrophe isn't always a matter of loud ideology. Rather, it's the result of age-old human weakness. And sometimes it's quiet.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

I cannot remember a major movie, not even "The Godfather," that forced me to peer so intently into the gloom. [2 December 2002, p. 87]

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Beautifully directed by Phillip Noyce, the film -- is a full experience, a love story and a murder mystery that expands into a meditation on the deep deceptions of innocence.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Caine has already been cited as a likely Oscar nominee for his performance, which is clearly one of the most nuanced to date from this first-rate actor, and Fraser is funny and effective as a foil to the old pro.

Slate David Edelstein

Caine makes Hampton's too-literary narration work by playing it as an inner dialogue: It's the best performance of narration I've ever heard. It makes you want to hear Caine read the whole book--or read anything.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Noyce takes a great deal of care with this adaptation. For one thing, he includes as much of Greene's potent shorthand as he can without weighing the movie down.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Ever since the movie made a brief appearance late last year to qualify for Oscar consideration, Mr. Caine's performance has been hailed as the best of his career, and surely that's true.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Fowler may be the richest character of Mr. Caine's screen career. Slipping into his skin with an effortless grace, this great English actor gives a performance of astonishing understatement whose tone wavers delicately between irony and sadness.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Thanks to Caine's subtly nuanced performance, there's a deeper dimension to everything. He's snappily ironic at times, sometimes amazingly delicate, always engaging.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

In so many ways, The Quiet American speaks volumes.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The key to why the new ''American'' is so good and so true, though, is Brendan Fraser as the title character.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A film full of a sense of impending danger, betrayal, seduction and destruction. Quite simply, it's great stuff.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

Unsettling, morally complex and timely view of American power abroad. Many will find it courageous and some, no doubt, will absolutely revile it, but no one is likely to look away from the screen.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Even as The Quiet American loses focus and urgency, Caine's performance keeps the doomed spirit of Greene's hero intact.

Variety Todd McCarthy

One of Caine's meatiest roles, and he handles it with power, humanity and remarkable emotional fluidity; from the opening moments, an enormous amount comes through his eyes alone.

Film Threat Tim Merrill

As a piece of acting, The Quiet American represents a fitting capper to Caine’s illustrious career; his portrait of a jaded sybarite whom history nudges into conscientious action is among the year’s most moving.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The second version of Graham Greene's sad and prescient 1955 novel about American involvement in Vietnam hews far closer to the book than the first, preserving the sophisticated ambiguity of his depiction of a tangled struggle for power played out on both personal and political fronts.

USA Today Mike Clark

This is intelligent grown-up entertainment on both a political and a humanistic level.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A smart and literate effort with a few weaknesses.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The acting, especially by the male leads, is superlative.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Caine has never been better, which is saying something. He puts a human face on a tragic era of history in a film that ranks with the year's finest.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Greene's words haunt us like a prophecy from half a century and half a world away.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Vibrant and intriguing, a fine adaptation despite the slight departures from its source, with warm cinematography that captures the feel of '50s Saigon and two performances worthy of Oscar attention.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

In short, this new Quiet American is not only true to Greene's novel -- it has the effect of making the novel itself seem truer than it has ever been.

LA Weekly John Patterson

Noyce has made a good-looking, intelligent stab at the novel, mildly undermined by a tendency to seek contemporary relevance.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The result is a rarity on the modern screen -- a film with more brains than heart.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

It's a shame that, on top of everything else, the second movie version of The Quiet American -- Graham Greene's brilliant 1955 novel about the French Indochina war -- should be so visually disappointing.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The movie adds nothing to the political dialogue, and the love story is mood-killingly sad. The lure of the exotic can be deceptive, it says. The moody, murky atmosphere leaves nothing clear except that mixed intentions will always yield mixed results.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

As is frequently the case when there is public fuss about a film or play, the work itself is not very good.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 19 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Cam H gave it a9:
Great film, great book, great author.

Kim S. gave it a 9:
Absolutely intriguing. I can only wonder what a masterpiece the book must be.

Pat C. gave it an 8:
A timely thought-prokoking story. One of Fraser's better acting outings, and an awesome performance by Caine, who needed to get away from recent roles beneath his capabilities.

John A. gave it a 9:
Great movie! Caine was remarkable (as usual) and the car bomb scene was brilliant (please ignore the naysayer below). Fraser is the only weak spot, but even he wasn't terrible, just mediocre. Try to catch it on the big screen because I don't think video will do the cinematic beauty of the film justice.

Robert P. gave it a 10:
I found this movie one the the best I've seen in years! The acting talents of the cast was superb and emotionally captivating. The cinematography, directing, and careful attention to detail gave the audience a visual and emotional feast. The politcal motives of visionary,well-meaning patriots/spies/missionaries and journalists is often clouded by the hidden agendas of the ruling class. The film allows the viewer to peer into the hearts and minds of those who are victimized by the conditions of armed conflict. This film is also a brilliant, sensitive portrayal of how intensely erotic and thrilling Asian women can be and why the underground market for "mailorder brides" has grown to staggering dimensions. The film is most meaningful to those who have experienced the so called "mystery of the orient" firsthand. Greed, sinfulness, racial worship, cruelty, murder and stupidity(as this wonderful film reveals) are often masked by the flowery promises of dreamy "asian romantic love" that American males experience when dating in the orient.

Stephen S. gave it a 6:
Persons of good breeding will feel faint when the Quiet American operative (Pyle) barges his puppy dog into the English reporter (Fowlers) tasteful Saigon apartment, where it promptly jumps onto the furniture. Then theyll feel a whole lot better to recall that Pyle has already been dispatched in the opening scene. It is hard to follow why this polite adaptation has been praised so lavishly. It is less impressive than Noyces Rabbit-Proof Fence, which is also (finally) screening in US. As if strongly acculturated to the US by now, Noyce directs more like an American than the Australian that he is. Youd just have to review the phenomenal battle scenes of Terence Malicks masterpiece The Thin Red Line, which were filmed in Australia, to be reminded how glossy and uninvolved is Noyces Vietnamese war of the 1950s. Michael Caine (as Fowler) is wonderful, more so than anyone or anything else in the movie. But he and the manikin Do Hai Yen (as Phuong, his love interest) fail to find the necessary sexual vibe. Two critical love scenes Pyles counter-declaration of love for Phuong, and Fowlers lie to Phuong about his wifes willingness to divorce fall flat. No doubt this is better than the original fifties version, but its by no means great. The person who emerges with the greatest credit is the prescient novelist, Graham Greene.

Armand G. gave it a 2:
I could only sit through twenty minutes of this movie, but I really thought the acting was terrible. Didn't get a chance to see Caine do anything much. It is very mediocre in many other ways including editing and cinematography to name just two.

Quiet American, The Miramax Films

Quiet American, The
Miramax Films