At the time of writing, the USA is on the verge of attacking Venezuela. Since Pollack’s film was released, the USA has invaded Iraq, and intervened in Libya.
Redford is a CIA desk jockey whose job is to analyse literature for clues of global turbulence. He stumbles across a text linking Iraq, Libya and Venezuela without at first joining the dots. But his discovery triggers the summary execution of his colleagues. Someone desperately needs to make sure that what Redford has discovered doesn’t get out. The narrative plot points might be tenuous, but the underlying thesis is as valid as ever. At the end of the film Redford confronts the head of the maverick CIA within a CIA - and realises it’s all about the oil. Same as it ever was.
Besides its ongoing geopolitical resonance, Three Days of the Condor remains a terrific thriller, blessed by extravagantly good Hollywood performances from Redford, Dunaway and Von Sydow. Pollack’s camera roams New York, with a protagonical role for the World Trade Centre, where the CIA office is based. Dunaway and Redford somehow manage to convince in their star-crossed one-night stand. This is a Hollywood thriller par excellence, which also happens to be an endlessly relevant treatise on the political systems of the past 50 years.
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As I post this, as ever weeks after watching the film, the USA has just bombed Venezuela.
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