"The Parallax View" is an interesting and disturbing thriller that takes an unusual attitude towards assassination conspiracies. Not only do they exist, but they are vast, organized, ruthless, faceless and permanent.

Warren Beatty stars as a third-rate reporter who uncovers an enormous conspiracy about the recent assassination of a U.S. Senator. Not only did the real killer escape, but witnesses to the shooting are also being killed, one by one.

Beatty is apparently the only employee of small-time newspaper publisher Hume Cronyn. He goes undercover to infiltrate an organization that he believes hires violent misanthropes as assassins. Several narrow escapes with death fail to convince him of the obvious; that he is in over his head.

There is much action in "The Parallax View". Some of it does not seem necessary to the plot, but it is engrossing anyway. Beatty has confrontations with an amoral rural sheriff and his deputy. He also meets desperate witnesses who believe that they are on a list to be killed.

But at the heart of the film is a mystery. Beatty is determined to find out what the Parallax Corporation is all about, and whether there is any limit to its power. Beatty must pass careful screening to become one of their operatives. He has to take an unusual written exam, and be monitored while watching a bizarre film consisting of positive and negative images. This screening is to detect sociopathic personalities that Parallax believes are present in loyal assassins.

Beatty's character is not particularly bright. Perhaps he is overconfident in his ability to con people, and too greedy for the big story to keep out of trouble. But these weaknesses also make for an ideal male lead in a detective story. It helps that there are no love interests or other subplots to sidetrack the real story. Which is, will Beatty succeed in taking down Parallax? (77/100)




Recommended: Yes