For a long time, I thought that Klute was going to be one of the greatest thrillers that I had ever seen. By the end, I was bored and wanted the movie to be over. This could have been a masterpeice with some judicious editing.
The movie is brillantly concieved, with the most psychologically three-deminsional characters you'll find in a movie of its type. There are two protagonists: John Klute (Donald Sutherland) a conservative PI who is hired to find his friend Tom (Robert Milli), who has vanished mysteriously, and Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) a world weary prostitute who holds the only clues. Bree is an aspiring actress and sort of enjoys being a prostitute, because it allows her much needed control. The movie works for a long time because Pakula (who directed the masterpiece Sophie's Choice and the excellent The Pelican Brief) creates a detached, cerebral tone, which is probably similer to how Klute looks at the world. Pakula also establishes an interesting dynamic and relationship betwen Klute and Bree -Klute always says exactly what he means and just solve the case, Bree is always acting and trying to be clever.
Spoilers ahead! The movie began to lost me when a compleatly predictable thing happens- Klute and Bree sleep together, and then Bree actually begins to fall for Klute, and vice-versa. Although I belevied that this is something the characters might do, I think a more interesting dramatic idea would have been for Klute to resist Bree's charms and for Bree to fall for him due to his morality and stabilty. I didn't really beleive the end, where the couple go off together- I can see why Bree is attracted to Klute, but what does Klute have for Bree, beyond the physical? Furthermore, the love story is actually rather boring and kills of a lot interest and suspense Paukla has been carefully building up. There is nothing in these scenes you havn't seen in a million times in other movies.
Also, I should note that Jane Fonda is excellent as Bree (she won an Oscar). Since Bree is always acting, we could be confused as to her actual motives by a lesser actress, but Fonda subtley shows us when she is really saying what she means, or when she is lying, even to herself. Although he has an easier role, Donald Sutherland is very good as well, giving an appropriatley bare-bones performance.
I am giving the movie a mild reccomendation, mainly for the first forty five minuets and a few intersting scenes after that. But this was a major blown oppurtinity-somebody needed to tell Pakula to throw out what didn't work and keep was great, which was amazing. What's left is an amalgamation of the mediorcre and the brillant, a movie that is banal at one moment and facinating the next. Oh, if someone had only taken out those unecessary thirty minuets.
Klute (1971)