GENE HACKMAN IN FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'THE CONVERSATION'

Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION Year: 1974 Rating: ****1/2

By the time Gene Hackman's surveillance expert Harry Caul attends a convention of lesser experts who consider him an icon, we've already learned about how surreptitious his methods are: turning this comparably fast-moving second-act of Francis Ford Coppola's otherwise slow-burn THE CONVERSATION into more of a climatic peak than what eventually becomes a paranoid Hitchcockian thriller involving the murder of the powerful man who had initially hired him...

In one of Gene Hackman's greatest performances mainly for what he holds back, having already proven what he can explosively unleash in THE FRENCH CONNECTION while THE GODFATHER auteur Coppola provides the same kind of subtlety: intentionally hiding more than revealing...

Harrison Ford in THE CONVERSATION

Meanwhile, the only antagonist is merely antagonistic, personality-wise, as scene-stealing character-actor Allen Garfield plays Harry's bragging competitor, coinciding with Coppola's GODFATHER black-sheep John Cazale as Harry's talkative assistant, also yearning to learn his taciturn methods...

As THE CONVERSATION also provides Gene Hackman a kind of nuanced, offbeat, passive-aggressive, impatient, almost unlikable role, sporadically clashing against a woodwork of encroaching side-characters...

Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION with Harrison Ford

Including a sneaky Harrison Ford, working for Robert Duvall connected to a scheming Fredric Forrest and Cindy Williams, for whom Caul's exterior recording CONVERSATION is visually and audibly captured in the technically-embroiled first act; Elizabeth MacRae as a politely manipulative siren; and Teri Garr as a probing on/off girlfriend... 

Yet it's almost entirely Hackman's ride as the eccentric control-freak who only thinks he holds the proverbial cards that, thanks to Coppola's tightly-wound script against deliberately cold, voyeuresque direction with a sparse piano soundtrack, makes THE CONVERSATION a plot-driven vehicle igniting the character-driven plot-line.

Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION

Allen Garfield in THE CONVERSATION

Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION

Robert Duvall in THE CONVERSATION

John Cazale and Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION

Harrison Ford in THE CONVERSATION

Allen Garfield, John Cazale and Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION

Allen Garfield, John Cazale and Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION

Elizabeth MacRae in THE CONVERSATION

John Cazale in THE CONVERSATION

Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams in THE CONVERSATION

Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams in THE CONVERSATION

Teri Garr in THE CONVERSATION

Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION

Robert Shields with Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams in THE CONVERSATION

Gene Hackman, Allen Garfield, John Cazale and Ramon Bieri in THE CONVERSATION

Allen Garfield in THE CONVERSATION

John Cazale in THE CONVERSATION

Ramon Bieri and Allen Garfield in THE CONVERSATION

Elizabeth MacRae in THE CONVERSATION

Gene Hackman in THE CONVERSATION

Harrison Ford in THE CONVERSATION

Gene Hackman and Mark Wheeler in THE CONVERSATION