Even if you are paranoid, they may still be after you.
For Hollywood, the 70s were a golden age for the paranoid conspiracy thriller, especially in the wake of the Watergate scandal. On that theme appears Sydney Pollacks “Three days for the Condor” as one of the brightest stars.
CIA agent Joe Turner (a perfectly mundane Robert Redford) works with analyzing books. After returning from lunch one day, he finds his colleagues brutally murdered, and life becomes a waking nightmare. Now he must try to survive himself and at the same time bring the guilty parties to justice.
It’s a tight story that Sydney Pollack has woven together here, one that I don’t feel gets as much attention as it deserves. Redford may be a movie star at the tips of his fingers but can come across as a completely ordinary man, and his Joe Turner is really a fish in the wrong water.
Max von Sydow and his amazing hat.
One of the other highlights is Max von Sydow as Joubert, an assassin hot on the heels of Redford’s Joe Turner. A cold and somewhat surprisingly human interpretation that definitely helps propel the film to the top of the list.
Between 2018 and 2020, a television series based on the film and the original simply called “Condor” aired, with Max Irons (Son to Jeremy) in Redford’s role. It never got much attention unfortunately but is well worth checking out where it’s streaming on Tele2 Play.
Here you can see “Three days for Condor”:
• Tonight 22:45 in SVT2
• Stream for free on SVT Play
• Rent/buy the film at SF Anytime
