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Don't listen to the negative reviews

Captivating movie !

Admirable film.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A fine adaptation of the Graham Greene novel I read several years ago, "The Quiet American" gradually and tellingly unfurls its twin stories of early anti-Communist American intervention in Vietnam and a triangular love story between Michael Caine's cynical middle-aged English Times reporter, Brendan Fraser as the young, good-looking quiet- spoken American aid worker and Do Thi Hai Yen as Caine's native mistress.The story is told from Caine's character's viewpoint, he the jaded "Our Man In Vietnam", happily separated from his British wife by his job and whose easy existence sees him require to wire in only a few stories a year while keeping his young and beautiful ex-courtesan Phuong as his obedient and uncomplaining lover only for his world to fall apart the minute Fraser enters the scene. Meanwhile, a renegade general attempts to violently carve out a third force in the country and these two strands come together with telling implications for the three main characters.The stories draw the viewer in completely although the inevitability of the ending is signalled with the murder in the opening minutes triggering a long flashback leading back up to the bloody climax. Caine is very good as the jilted writer gone-to-seed but who has found a reason for living in his can't-believe-his-luck liaison with the beautiful Phuong. Brendan Fraser is surprisingly good as the title character torn between his duty to his country, his love for Phuong and his regard for Caine. Thai Yen as Phuong imparts a calm stillness and indeed stoicism, content it seems to use her looks to her best advantage to find a love that will take her out of the bordello run by her protective older sister and convinces the viewer of her capacity to make two very different men love her to distraction.This well-crafted movie tellingly embodies Greene's identifiable themes of guilt, betrayal and honour, with its central characters all trying to escape their trapped existences but who find themselves moved by great events and petty jealousies. Atmospherically filmed and strongly acted, it is one of the superior adaptations of a Greene novel you could hope to see.

Entertaining picture dealing with a central romance along with thrills , political details and warlike deeds about Vietnam war . A young naive American named Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) and a cynical older British journalist called Fowler (Michael Caine) disagree over politics in 1952 Vietnam and over a beautiful young native girl called Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen) . As a ¨quiet American¨ with dark secrets arrives in Saigon with his own plan to settle country's conflicts . As it's not clear whether Alden Pyle is just what he appears , as he seems to be an innocent Young American opposite the older, cynical Brit Thomas Fowler . Eventually Fowler must confront moral conflicts and the relationship between Pyle and him reaches some problems connected with a Vietnamese General , at the same time the war and a political upheaval take place . Interesting second rendition of the Graham Greene novel including a love triangle , emotion , wartime events and many other things . The picture relies heavily on the love triangle between the ironical British reporter , his enticing mistress and the strange quiet American , but it doesn't boring , neither tiring and nor dull . Michael Caine is good as a correspondent covering a conflict and finding himself becoming personally involved when he befriends an American who is not all that he seems to and also falling for a beautiful young Vietnamese , a mesmerizing Do Thi Hai . The movie has its touching moments found primarily in the superb performances from trio protagonist . The film ends with newspaper stories written by Thomas Fowler about Vietnam from 1954 to 1966. However the book on which the film was based was published in 1955, so these are mostly events which happened after the book came out . The US release of this movie was delayed for more than a year by the terrorist attacks on the USA of 11 September 2001. The producers were concerned that it would be seen as anti-American.Miramax had paid $5.5 million for the rights to distribute the movie in North America and some other territories, but then shelved it for a long time. Miramax even planned to send this movie to go straight-to-video. But Michael Caine successfully persuaded Miramax to screen this movie at 2002 Toronto International Film Festival; the movie received many good reviews at the Film Festival, so Miramax decided to release this movie in the United States theatrically . This handsomely mounted flick was well directed by Phillip Noyce , a successful Australian director who filmed Dead Calm (1989), starring Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill and Billy Zane , it brought Noyce to Hollywood, where he directed 6 films over the next decade, including Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and present danger (1994) starring Harrison Ford, and The bone collector (1999), starring Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.The first version with a very good cast such as Audie Murphy as the American , Michael Redgrave as Thomas Fowler , Claude Dauphin as Inspector Vigot , Giorgia Moll as Phuong Bruce Cabot as Bill Granger resulted to be more a killing mystery than the political/drama intented , while this last retelling turned to be more faithful to Graham Greene than Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1958 take on . In fact , in Europe, director-writer Joseph L. Mankiewicz was savagely attacked for his film's infidelity to the source novel by Graham Greene, not least by Greene himself. The screenplay essentially turns the novel inside-out, so that the blundering "quiet American", whose extreme naiveté causes tragedies .

I've decided to say very little about this movie, except that it's one of quiet quality - the story, the screenplay, the acting by all and the location work.Like its title, it does not and indeed doesn't need to shout out about its many fine qualities. The story is universal, 'old school' - in that there is actually one to be told and is portrayed in an intelligent manner by director Philip Noyce. Michael Caine's performance remains one his very best - subtle, vulnerable but still commanding and Brendan Fraser, so often type-casted into comedy and action 'matinee' style blockbusters that we are slightly surprised that he rises to this occasion nicely.For a film to teach us about human behaviour, history during a contentious and difficult time for many (Vietnam, of course) but not feel the need to ram actual war down our throats is refreshing. It might not be considered a classic, but good it is and should be on a to-see list if a quality intelligent drama and one that doesn't require endless to-ing and fro-ing and getting lost in over-elaborate plot-lines. Fans of Michael Caine should actually own it, as those who follow the excellent Grahame Greene and his cinematic adaptations.

Phillip Noyce's The Quiet American plays into his wheelhouse as a political thriller, but the more interesting aspect of it (on paper) is the love story centered at the middle of it. It's adapted from the Graham Greene novel of the same name and it feels as though it comes from another era. Taking place in Saigon in 1952, on the brink of the Vietnam War, the whole thing has this intriguing neo-noir tone as it boils down in the Vietnamese heat. We center on Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine), a British reporter living in Saigon with Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), his extramarital lover, when an American named Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) comes into their lives and shakes everything up. The two begin a classic game of vying for Phuong's affection, with a country falling apart in the background.It's an interesting set up and I think that Noyce was able to establish the perfect tone for it, feeling like the kind of noir romantic thriller that would have come right out of the time period. The running time is brief, clocking in at almost exactly 90 minutes, and so he doesn't waste any scenes, with each one providing something necessary for either plot progression or character development. It flies by at a smooth pace, never getting ahead of it's audience but never dragging or feeling like it's pandering either.Michael Caine guides the film as someone with his skill was born to do, taking the whole thing in his grasp and commanding every moment of it. He's in almost every scene and his presence was what drove the film the most, crafting a rich and empathetic character despite his seemingly detached emotional position when it comes to the political conflicts at hand. It's ultimately a story of a lost man, lost in country and in himself, having to look inside himself and discover the things that matter to him. There's a lot of development for his character throughout the picture and as we get into the final act it's fascinating to watch Caine unravel and peel back the layers of this man. It's the kind of performance from a veteran actor where you can truly feel the decades of this man's life being worn on every expression he makes and the way he holds himself. A very strong work from him, that unfortunately isn't quite matched by Fraser or Yen.Brendan Fraser does his best but he's just not a deep enough actor to handle the complexities of Pyle, although when the character is introduced as a naive piece of wood he fits the part to a tee. Yen is probably the biggest detractor of the film, because thanks to her dreadfully flat performance the whole romance angle doesn't work the way that it should have. Caine lifts the project up and Noyce does a good job of bleeding together the romantic plot with the larger political scope of it, but her performance drags it down a bit and kills a lot of the romance angle. Still, definitely a quality film overall thanks to a tremendous performance and some fine writing and directing.