Praised as a Political director, Costa-Gavras is of interest less for his finally unsophisticated analyzes of government intrigue than for the way he manages to frame his impassioned polemics within a popular and entertaining format
Inspired by the disappearance of a young American during the coup, the film lacks moral complexity, but finds an admirable audience surrogate in the boy's Republican father, who is slowly educated in the imperialist hypocrisy of American foreign policy when he repeatedly encounters ambassadorial lies concerning his son's death Most affecting is the evocation of a country under martial law falling apart at the seams: shots ring in the night, a white stallion gallops through the curfew pursued by a truck full of trigger-happy soldiers
Not surprisingly, Costa-Gavras' "conjectural" film provoked the wrath of the US State Department
Inspired by the disappearance of a young American during the coup, the film lacks moral complexity, but finds an admirable audience surrogate in the boy's Republican father, who is slowly educated in the imperialist hypocrisy of American foreign policy when he repeatedly encounters ambassadorial lies concerning his son's death Most affecting is the evocation of a country under martial law falling apart at the seams: shots ring in the night, a white stallion gallops through the curfew pursued by a truck full of trigger-happy soldiers
Not surprisingly, Costa-Gavras' "conjectural" film provoked the wrath of the US State Department