The Conversation

Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is an invader of privacy and is the best investigator anywhere to hear conversations between two people. His way of life consists of being mysterious and keeping things to himself for others not to find out. This is obviously shown in the beginning of the movie when he had to unlock three different locks to get inside of his apartment. Not only this, but also doesn’t have a social life with his partner in crime Stan (John Cazale). The movie takes place in a social place between lunch times with a crowd of business people. He is assigned to track their conversation and deliver it to a director for a big company. He is concerned that once he hands these tapes, he will jeopardize their lives and that’s when the movie begins.

For myself, I did enjoy this movie to a certain extent and believe that the ending was brilliant with the way the movie was shot. It started with him being cautious about his work and getting involved with the case that he was on, to the end of tearing every little thing out of his apartment to find the bug. It felt he was the predator hunting on the prey and at the end he became the prey being watched by the predator. Also it seems to me at the end he starts losing himself a bit and drives himself crazy. The only part I didn’t really enjoy about the movie is how he had flashbacks on when he killed people in an earlier case or was accused of stealing money of some sort. I wish they explained in more detail on why that happened and the reason behind it. For that would have made the movie more clear in my mind and tell us why Harry Caul was such a paranoid individual. Over the entire movie was a mystery to me all the way at the end. I was surprised that at the end the two that were having an affair were not the victims but the murderers along. Very well put together and enjoyed the movie more than I thought possible