Watch The Ugly American For Free

Wonderful character development!

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

I remember first seeing "The Ugly American" upon its initial release in 1963, and I equally remember immediately linking it with what was happening in Viet Nam. I found it absorbing and timely then just as I do today. As the American ambassador with a total white hat/black hat mentality, Marlon Brando in my opinion gives one of his best performances. There's the shouting and the strutting, but there are also some very, eerily quiet, contrasting moments when he simply lets the frustration of his character all hang out. As his former best friend and now rebel leader of the fictional Sarkan to which Brando's Ambassador White has been posted, Ejii Okada is every bit Brando's equal. Their sharp exchanges are riveting, as is so much of the dialogue in this film, dialogue-heavy moments that I do not personally find boring because what they are discussing strikes me as being as important today as in 1963 when this film was first released.I do recognize that some reviewers were terribly disappointed (maybe even offended) that the film was not a recapitulation of an apparently well written, highly complex novel which I haven't read yet but intend to if I can find a copy. However, no matter how great the book, shouldn't a film be judged as a film because it is not a book? For one thing, movies don't have the luxury of an endless running time, a constraint not put upon the number of pages needed to tell a print story. Also, is not the punctuation, grammar and syntax of image quite different than that of print? Finally, as others have said, it is too bad (a) "The Ugly American" has been mostly forgotten (if it has ever been heard of) and (b) the powerful message that ends this picture is still as relevant today as it was in 1963. Indeed, if anything it is even more (very sadly) spot-on than it was then.

I have been cheated. The film's title, the name of (Marlon Brando) – as the star who refused the Oscar for the way the red Indians were portrayed in Hollywood – , and as a film about how America was treating the Asian nations during the cold war, all of that fooled me perfectly, giving me false hope to watch an objective work. Because after all, it's just a piece of propaganda from the 1960s.It tried to be a story about the friendship of 2 good men with 2 different points of view in an ocean of big problems. It tried, a bit, to display that the American hero isn't all flawless. But it ended up as a Hollywood film about the goodness of America and the evilness, or the stupidity, of the rest! Let's simply review what it did say : the American is a peace-loving man, America got no military greed whatsoever in Asia (HA HAA HAAA !), the eastern bloc is bad, just bad, and doesn't want anything but to kill and seize, the Asian developing country's public leader is so deluded, knowing nothing about America's kindhearted face, thinking "wrongly" that they cared about his country just as a new playground for the cold war ??? (Actually he isn't an idiot, but maybe the writer of this film is !).The first half is so powerful with 3 great scenes; the congress's open session for interrogating (Mac) the nominee ambassador, the first meeting of this new ambassador with his staff, and surely the master scene of that bullfight of a squabble between him and his good old friend/the public leader (Deong) over America's real aims.After that, things grew less solid. I totally couldn't accept the agreement between the eastern bloc and (Deong). The approval of the last was fast and forced. I don't believe for a second that this man, who rejects truthfully and publicly that his country turns into a grass for the east or the west, can be incredibly dumb to hand his very country over a full gang of communist nations so easily !?? Let alone that the absence of "Munsang", the local communist leader, out of the drama weakened (Deong)'s character and darkened his change.Then the adolescent reaction from the American ambassador which pushed things to explosion; I felt it extremely unwise for his character to think like this. And it was strange that the Asian president approved it as well. Anyway, not the monologue of "what happened to us" that the lead tells his friend by the end could set things right. With fabricated, nearly incomprehensible, moments like executing the poor local farmer by the hands of the communists in front of his wife and kids it became clear what kind of loud propaganda we're watching (25 years later, watch the capitalists do the same crime with the same people while nearly the same days, however in Oliver Stone's movies about the filthy American war in Vietnam!). And it can't get any clearer when the dying public leader says to his people and us, after murdering him by the hands of his closest right hands (not any other !), that "Mansang" is the enemy not the American ambassador, as if it's "The eastern bloc is bad. America is good" !!!Maybe this kind of movies was bearable at the days of Kennedy (even the lead's wife is so similar to Kennedy's), where the noble aims weren't killed in the daylight yet. But after Vietnam then Iraq (and during the cold war itself) they're nothing but big colorful and so polished lies. It's electrifying to listen to the speech of (Deong) about America that makes the tyrants then overthrows them, not for the pure profit of their people, but for America's one. I believe after 50 years hearing hot lines like "Wall street that sells tanks" or "your democracy is a fraud" became so bitter. It took some years and couple of wars to make the American real aims, that (Deong) talked about, naked and true. So naked and true to an extent uncovers how (Brando)'s character is very naive ! Hence while the finale's harangue that (Brando) gives, completes the work's basic mission as ideal liberal advertisement, it didn't hold a candle to the image that we saw for the non-Americans in the film, and the American we know out of the film, the real ugly one !Artistically it's watchable and classy. I loved the most the scene in which (Brando)'s character discovers that his wartime buddy isn't and wasn't a communist, the big cadre embodied the enormity of his surprise shockingly; part of my love comes from the fact that this kind of cadres has become no fashion in Hollywood nowadays. And despite how terrible the English of (Eiji Okada) as (Deong) was sometimes, but he was utterly believable, and his enthusiasm along with his rage were untouched. I only thought that (Brando) did his best at the first half, then did the opposite at the second; he stopped talking from his heart anymore and began speaking from his throat, as if he wasn't satisfied with the material he does. If I assumed honesty in it; then it was another time, with utopian spirit. And accordingly its only value that could stay over the years would be its theoretical bona fide. Otherwise, I have been cheated. And after ages of these movies – and nothing else them –, so the rest of the world. It's hard to see America treating the developing nations this nice, since experiencing it with these nations in reality assured how "treat" and "tread" are almost the same thing. In all cases, they should have called it (The Very Beautiful American), the one we don't see unless in films !

This film came out in 1963, just when the Kennedy/Johnson administration started to escalate the war in Vietnam. I am terribly dismayed and disappointed that the U.S government learned nothing from this movie.In the first place, it is utterly and unrealistic to muddle into the political affairs of a country with very different culture and political background. Secondly, while we in the western world deplore communism, it is very silly and idiotic to treat it as a contagious disease, to be repelled and avoided at all costs. With our wealth, freedom of expression and using an open-door policy, we can show the people in the Communist countries or countries about to go Communist that our system is better and in every way offers people more freedom, pleasure and security. I think this film should be shown whenever and wherever people come to see the Vietnam Monument in Washington

"The Ugly American" was released right before the Vietnam War started (depending on which stage of it), and now it seems more relevant than ever. Harrison MacWhite (Marlon Brando) becomes ambassador to the Southeast Asian nation of Sarkhan, which is on the verge of civil war between the Communists and the pro-US government. In Sarkhan, MacWhite begins to suspect that US intervention in this country might be prompting people to rebel. While he refuses to accept it, the situation becomes more and more tense, and MacWhite's officially neutral position becomes less and less sustainable.You can't say for certain what the movie's political message is, but we might take MacWhite's speech at the end as a good reminder. Either way, this is one of the many movies that showed how great an actor Marlon Brando was.