The Quiet American (2002)

THE QUIET AMERICAN  (2002)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Phillip Noyce
    Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Do Thi Hai Yen
Michael Caine plays a British journalist working in Saigon in the early 1950s. Brendan Fraser's a medical aid worker newly arrived from the States. The French are losing the war, the Yanks are weighing their options, the Vietnamese are jockeying for position, and just to make things interesting, Fraser and Caine are in love with the same girl. Graham Greene wrote the novel this is based on, so there's a current of unease running through everything. People are not what they seem to be, necessarily, and you'd think a seasoned observer like Caine would be more suspicious of Fraser's real motives early on. But the sights and sounds, the beauty and even the air of Vietnam can be intoxicating, and the old newsman is no stranger to an opium pipe. There's not a lot of depth to what Fraser does here, or to his character, for that matter, but Caine, playing an aging romantic with a weary air of cynicism and sadness, gives one of his best performances.