The Quiet American

Before the American war in Vietnam, there was another one. The French had been fighting the Communist rebels for years. It was a bloody colonial conflict, hardly the concern of anyone else, especially London, or Washington.

Graham Greene had a knack of writing novels about countries before they hit international headlines. The Quiet American centres on Fowler, a veteran (London) Times correspondent in Saigon, who has gone native and is living with Phoung, a one-time bar hostess, 30 years his junior. His other vice is opium.

Pyle, the American, seems a worthy, uninteresting character, whose reason for being in the Far East is not entirely transparent. His interest in Phoung expresses itself in polite elucidations of affection, which Folwer cynically dismisses. Later, he changes his tune, as acts of terrorism encroach the bastion of The Continental Hotel and Pyle's true mission becomes apparent.

Phillip Noyce's film has one crippling weakness. There is no chemistry between Fowler (Michael Caine) and Phoung (Do Hai Yen) and no frisson about Pyle (Brendan Fraser) whatsoever.

"The fear of losing Phoung is more terrifying than any bullet," Fowler confesses. "If I lose her, it would be the beginning of death." He can say these things, but when they are together it feels like a charade. Despite his empathy as an actor, Caine is too old for the part. Even during field work, when Fowler goes out in search of something to report, he looks in need of medical assistance. Do Hai Yen's inexperience adds to the air of artificiality. She masters a foreign language - English - but cannot respond emotionally to either man.

Fraser has the toughest task. He must portray a numbing naivety and dedication to good manners that comes from an age gone by. At the same time, he has to give indications of the man-of-action, disguised beneath a false persona. On the whole, he succeeds admirably.

True to the book, the film starts at the end, with the discovery of Pyle's body. Although everything that follows is one long flashback, aided by Fowler's narrative voice-over - always a dangerous weapon in the hands of scriptwriters - the killing of Pyle remains constant in the mind, as if to say, "Don't worry about the love triangle, it's going to end in tragedy," which unties the knots around the wrists of the romance, even before it has time to flourish.