Caine's Oscar nomination well deserved for 'The Quiet American'

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

THE QUIET AMERICAN (Rated R for violence, profanity, drugs) Four Stars (Excellent) Graham Greene's classic novel of romantic intrigue in 1950s Indochina has been artfully adapted into one of the best films of the year. At its center is an absolutely perfect performance by Michael Caine as a cynical world-weary correspondent content to hide out in Saigon with his young Vietnamese mistress. Brendan Fraser co-stars for director Phillip Noyce. Miramax, 101 minutes.

At its center is an absolutely perfect performance by Michael Caine as Thomas Fowler, the story's narrator, a cynical world-weary British correspondent who is content to hide out in Saigon with his young Vietnamese mistress.

But Fowler is on a stage where the French are about to make a final bow — and brash Americans are on the way in.

Partly an evocative thriller and partly a moody metaphor for the earliest United States incursions into Vietnam, "The Quiet American," for which Caine received an Academy Award nomination Tuesday, explores a volatile romantic triangle that's about to be overtaken by broader, more serious issues.

As the film opens, Fowler meets the title character, a brash seemingly naive young American named Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser). Pyle is in Vietnam purportedly to provide medical aid. But that might be a cover story.

Fowler is more immediately concerned with the friendship that develops between Pyle and Phuong (Do Hai Yen), Fowler's lovely young lover.

The self-righteous Pyle makes it his mission to save Phuong from a doomed life in Vietnam. He wants to lure her away from Fowler, marry her and take her home to Boston.

So while Fowler, Pyle and Phuong remain friendly and respectful above the surface, tension runs deep. Like America's involvement in general, the situation can't end well.

Caine virtually disappears within Fowler, and gives viewers a complex, morally ambivalent and utterly fascinating character. This will be remembered among a handful of his greatest performances.

Fraser is ideally cast as the fresh-faced, idealistic American, while their lovely Asian co-star makes Phuong a young woman of innocence, beauty and mystery.

"The Quiet American" is the first major Western production to shoot in Vietnam — and 1950s Saigon and environs have been meticulously recreated.

The highly esteemed cinematographer Christopher Doyle provides robust visuals of the steamy green jungles, the primordial countryside and the shadowy, slightly seedy colonial structures, streets and squares of Saigon.

The script by Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan is remarkably loyal to Green's text. Director Phillip Noyce engineers an ideal pace and mood along with the first-rate performances.

It might seem remarkable that Noyce could release two superb films in one season — the other being "Rabbit-Proof Fence." However, "The Quiet American" was completed a year earlier.

Miramax delayed its release in the complex political atmosphere that followed 9-11. The film could be viewed as vaguely anti-American.

Once seen, it all seems silly because the story is of another time. Besides, the cautions it raises about Vietnam have been justified in our 20/20 hindsight.

Rated R, with violence, profanity, drugs.