Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

The Quiet American
2002
***
Director: Phillip Noyce
Cast: Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Do Thi Hai Yen, Rade Serbedzija, Tzi Ma

This intelligent and well-acted but not terribly exciting drama is based on Graham Greene's novel, and it was filmed once before in the 1950s. The story is set in Saigon in 1952 where a British correspondent witnesses the first signs of the upcoming civil war. He befriends a mysterious American who has something bigger to hide than the fact that he's about to steal the journo's Vietnamese girlfriend.