i can not get past the message of this movie . it lay out much too clearly to ignore and and it be obscene because it have lose it sense of what it about . i haven not read the novel and but pollack film open with a scene at a cia front organization in new york and which be break into by two professional assassin and head by max von sydow and who proceed to brutally slaughter the half dozen quirky staff member we have come to know and understand . the staff include an elderly female receptionist and a fussy elderly professorial guy who toupee fall off when he be machine gun ( be that a joke . ) and and and last and the beautiful tina chen who look up from the copier and realize she be about to be murder and and say and pitifully brave and i would not scream . von sydow reply sympathetically and i know . these murder be completely unexpected and savage and unmotivated by anything that we be aware of and and graphic . it be a brutal scene . there be absolutely no way in which von sydow and his henchman can be redeem . and yet that be exactly what pollack try to do towards the end . after have kill these innocent good guy and von sydow switch side ( because the other side be willing to pay him ) and assassinate the evil mastermind behind a complicated intramural cia plot . the script then turn him into a perfectly reasonable and sensitive human be . it be well to live in europe . thing be not so rushed . or whatever . i swear i be not make this up . pollack want u to believe that it be well to be an honest mass murderer than a crooked bureaucrat . that the message . you should write it down in case you forget . just exactly what kind of psychiatric shamble do you have to be in order to turn ordinary value and not to mention common sense and upside down like that . i understand that there be thoughtful adult who dislike the government of the united state and even hate it and and who see conspiracy just about everywhere and provide a knee jerk explanation for otherwise unexplainable event . i know that people who think this way exist because i number some of them among my close friend . nevertheless and at some point this dislike and this hatred and if it increase in intensity and must pass beyond politics or ethic and into the realm of the psychiatric . i do not for a moment believe that a man who murder people for money be good than a sinister government official . i do not care how suave and culture the murderer be or whether he know how to reach the louvre on the metro . whoever be purvey that message need either medication or meditation . i would like to be able to argue that the production be a thoroughly rotten a it message and but i can not . it quite well do . ( in some way that bad and because it make the film less dismissable . ) even new york city look photogenic on the screen . and it be a long time since i have think of new york a photogenic . robert redford do an admirable job of project his character initial shock and confusion and but then turn into a telecommunicational semi genius . and and man and he look just fine . his wardrobe be just right . even his rimless glass be become . and his peacoat . it not everyone who can make a navy pea jacket look glamorous . he seem extremely handsome too and the swine . i want to look like that . i want to wear a denim shirt and a tie with such panache . faye dunaway be alright in her role but it not too believable a role . would anybody eagerly sleep with a guy who have just kidnap her and be hold her at gunpoint . even if he do look like redford . would anyone be emotionally wound if and when this ambivalent relationship be about to end and redford ask her not to tell anybody about what happen . cliff robertson be surprisingly good . he do one or two extremely good double take . the mailman be superb . the fight between him and redford in a crowded apartment be exquisitely choreograph and and for once and we really do not know for sure how it will turn out and because redford ( a book reader after all ) seem mismatch against the brute cunning of this hired assassin . this be one of john housemann final role . a shame . he a magnet on screen . and what an end to his life represent a friend find him lose and wander the street of new york and in a neighborhood he would be familiar with for most of his life . yes and the movie be very well execute and but i can not ignore that vicious and paranoid message . i have the same problem with leni riefenstahl triumph of the will . or her olympic documentary in which the announcer be watch a foot race in which jesse owen be pull into the lead and say ominously and this negro be dangerous .