The Parallax View

The Parallax View Director: Alan Pakula Cast: Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, William Daniels, Paula Prentiss
Memorable Quote: “We’re in the business of reporting the news, not creating it.”

The Parallax View is one of the movies I didn’t see when it was released and I’d always felt like I had missed something. Well, I’ve finally seen it and I can say I did miss something -- an intriguing yet very uneven and somewhat clumsey movie.

The Plot of the Parallax View

Joe Frady (Beatty) is a reporter who is either in the wrong place at the wrong time or the exact opposite, but at the beginning of the movie he is present at an assassination. Being young and ambitious, he has the idea that the assassination has a great meaning and possibly a conspiracy behind it, but he quickly runs out of leads. That is until a woman (Prentiss) comes to him and points out that witnesses at the shooting are disappearing at an alarming rate. Joe sees only rational and logical explanations behind these deaths, but starts picking at the threads of the story when something happens to her.

His editor (Cronyn) tries to persuade him to stop chasing a lost cause, but Frady persist. This persistence gets him beat-up and then almost killed but he is rewarded eventually as he starts to uncover something bigger than even he could imagine.

The Performances, Writing, & Direction of the Parallax View

Initially, Beatty seems ill-fit to the role of the two-fisted investigative reporter, but he grows into it as the movie progresses. While not a one-man show, Beatty has to carry most of the picture. Both Prentiss and Cronyn are quite good in their supporting role and Prentiss stands out in the few scenes she appears in.

The story is somewhat uneven. It moves along in fits and starts and sometimes takes oblique angles that seem more to confuse than illuminate. Still, it is an intelligent script with some compelling twists and the ending is haunting.

Pakula, while a wonderful actor’s director, seems out of his element at times with this movie. Action has never been his strong suit and it is painfully evident at times here. One action scene is embarrassingly bad, covered primarily with a wide-shot that robs the entire scene of tension or suspense.

Summary Judgement on the Parallax View

I was hoping for something more because I was familiar with Pakula’s work over the years. I feel the weakness of this movie is just a case of a mismatch of the director’s style with the story. There are some very powerful intriguing moments in this movie, but they are dragged down by some of the other clunky moments which is too bad. I would recommend that people start with All the President’s Men before seeing this movie because it is truly illustrative of Pakula’s fine work.