Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Optimistically billed as a political thriller, Three Days Of The Condor is very much a tale of paranoia that feigns a large degree of its political substance, to conceivably give the idea that it's a more important film than it really is. It's a fairly simple tale dressed up as something more complicated, and Robert Redford is effective as the title character, but Faye Dunaway's romantic introduction to Condor is bizarre bordering on ridiculous, leading to a cooperation that you can never take seriously. Three Days Of The Condor is heralded as one of the three great political thrillers of the seventies, alongside The Parallax View (1974) and All The President's Men (1976). Whilst it's certainly more enjoyable than the former, both of them fall way below the mastery of All The President's Men. It helps of course, that Nixon's paranoia that instigated the events that led to Watergate make it easier to hang a feature film on when you're working from facts (unlike Nixon, whey), but it is the film making itself that is superior to Parallax View and Condor. Three Days Of The Condor is held in high regard, and it's fun, but it's not essential. 6.4/10