So I'm pondering the resolution to the murder mystery here and it leads me to the sixty four thousand dollar question - what the heck was Peter Cable (Charles Cioffi) thinking? Unless I'm missing something here, Cable hired private detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) to essentially find himself, who admitted near the finale to Bree (Jane Fonda) that he killed three people. Why not just give himself up instead of making a cat and mouse game out of it? I guess he wanted to jump out of that window.
Oh well. I recall this film coming out with some fanfare back in 1971 because of it's subject matter. Fonda and Sutherland were breaking out as legitimate stars and the culture was beginning it's nosedive with movie treatments about free love, prostitution, drugs and you name it. It was epitomized here when Bree defends her lifestyle in a taped conversation with Tom Gruneman - "There's nothing wrong, nothing. Nothing is wrong." This all led to 'let it all hang out' and from there society continues in free fall to this day.
In it's day the picture was pretty daring but it would hardly register a ripple today, which is when I saw it for the first time. I'll admit grudgingly that Fonda's performance was pretty good; as for Sutherland, I'll have to blame the director for his lifeless portrayal here as the title character. One could make an argument that this is one of those early Seventies films that are must see, but once it got under way I thought there would be more of a mystery to the story.
Oh well. I recall this film coming out with some fanfare back in 1971 because of it's subject matter. Fonda and Sutherland were breaking out as legitimate stars and the culture was beginning it's nosedive with movie treatments about free love, prostitution, drugs and you name it. It was epitomized here when Bree defends her lifestyle in a taped conversation with Tom Gruneman - "There's nothing wrong, nothing. Nothing is wrong." This all led to 'let it all hang out' and from there society continues in free fall to this day.
In it's day the picture was pretty daring but it would hardly register a ripple today, which is when I saw it for the first time. I'll admit grudgingly that Fonda's performance was pretty good; as for Sutherland, I'll have to blame the director for his lifeless portrayal here as the title character. One could make an argument that this is one of those early Seventies films that are must see, but once it got under way I thought there would be more of a mystery to the story.