Review

...and yet I didn't get the sense that he will win it come next week- his performance is compelling and believable enough to carry this film to even longer lengths than it ends at, but it's not exactly his very best (not like say Cider House Rules or Hannah and Her Sisters). He indeed gets inside the Graham Greene character of Thomas Fowler, reporter for the London Times in 1952 Saigon, who is also in love with a beautiful Vietnamese girl. Enter in Brendan Fraser's character of Pyle, some sort of medical personnel, who quite congenially befriends Fowler, only to also fall for his girl. This in the scope of the French against the communist Vietnamese, making the atmosphere war torn.

While I have not read Greene's novel, it would seem that just from hearing Fowler's voice-over narration, brief and smart, the book is one of those that has the upper hand over the finished product of film. There is much merit to Noyce's adaptation, mainly due to Caine revealing depths on the nature of Fowler. And the love-triangle fused with the backdrop makes sense. It's Fraser who I though brings the film down in parts, for though he does what he can, he is severely overshadowed by the lead Brit. Not a great movie, but Caine fans will be delighted and Greene admirers should take a look as well. B+