I watched this film when I was younger and loved it. Seeing it again after many years, it's still riveting, but it has flaws in it, mainly the motivations of Charles, the man who goes missing. Why was he killed so indiscriminately? It was a pretty well known fact that the CIA and the US were behind the 9/11/73 (yes, the Chilean coup happened on Sept. 11th), and as far as the movie goes, Charles was never threatening to expose what was happening. There's even a NY Times reporter in the movie covering the coup, and she's never messed with. Plus there was a coup attempt a few months prior to the September one, and it (obviously) failed. The country was also in turmoil during the Allende years (lots of strikes, some local, some manufactured by the Americans), so the portrayal of Charles as a naive idealist strikes as false. Plus 2 other men who write for a left wing publication that Charles does are arrested, one is executed, the other is set free. So why was Charles considered such a threat? The movie never really explains.
Lemmon's character naivete works well (and it's one of his best performances). He's just a man who is looking for his son, and is outraged not only about his son and his son's fate, but of the sheer brutality (very well depicted in the movie) carried about by the coup leaders with backing from the US. Lemmon is a very proud American, so his beliefs are pretty much shot to hell by the end of the film, which shows the ugly side of US foreign policy. The official run around is in full swing and Lemmon's gets more and more infuriated at the lies and obfuscation of the US officials, and then it turns to fury as he discovers his son's fate.
A flawed but still great movie. As a man looking for his son, the film works wonders thanks to Lemmon and Spacek. As a political thriller, it works less well.
Lemmon's character naivete works well (and it's one of his best performances). He's just a man who is looking for his son, and is outraged not only about his son and his son's fate, but of the sheer brutality (very well depicted in the movie) carried about by the coup leaders with backing from the US. Lemmon is a very proud American, so his beliefs are pretty much shot to hell by the end of the film, which shows the ugly side of US foreign policy. The official run around is in full swing and Lemmon's gets more and more infuriated at the lies and obfuscation of the US officials, and then it turns to fury as he discovers his son's fate.
A flawed but still great movie. As a man looking for his son, the film works wonders thanks to Lemmon and Spacek. As a political thriller, it works less well.