‘What I do is not a bad occupation. Someone is always willing to pay…’
Sydney Pollack is perhaps one of the less glamorous names to come out of the New Hollywood movement of the ’70s but his filmography as a director is both storied and impressive. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They, The Yakuza, Tootsie, Out of Africa… these are all significant films, and Three Days of the Condor fits snugly alongside those entries as one of Pollack’s most accomplished works…
The film opens with bookish CIA analyst Joe Turner (Robert Redford) returning to the office from his dinner break to discover that all six of his colleagues have been brutally gunned down in an apparent professional hit. Rather than handing himself into the authorities, Turner instead opts to kidnap Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway), a random woman that he just happens to run into in the street and go on the run. Meanwhile, the CIA send Joubert (Max von Sydow) to apprehend Turner thus beginning a competent and occasionally captivating cat-and-mouse thriller.
I haven’t seen many Robert Redford movies but I find him to be quite an emotionally closed-off actor. He’s compelling here but I never really believed his relationship with Dunaway (she gives a better performance and is slightly underused) but Redford does at least look the part. His bewilderment seems genuine, but both Dunaway and von Sydow fare better than Redford in the scenes that they share. Indeed, von Sydow is unsurprisingly excellent. Gentle one minute, sinister the next, the ghost of a smile dancing on his lips, it’s a typically assured performance from a truly talented actor. I also loved the general feel of Pollack’s movie. The opening half an hour that cross-cuts between Redford on his lunch break and the mass shooting in the office is masterful cinema, although there is a nagging feeling that the rest of the film never lives up to the early promise demonstrated in those crucial early scenes.
Three Days of the Condor is a pleasing throwback to the kind of nuanced and layered thriller that is very much a rarity in modern cinema. Packed full of talent, it’s hard to imagine anyone not finding at least something to enjoy here, even if it’s just all the cosy-looking ’70s sweaters.
