Gene Hackman is superb here as "Harry" - a super-efficient surveillance expert who discovers in the line of duty that a couple he is monitoring might well be about to be murdered. It becomes clear that the couple - Cindy Williams & Frederic Forrest are having an affair but that is just the tip of the conspiratorial iceberg in this tautly scripted/directed effort from Francis Ford Coppola. It's a slow burn, at times it certainly does drag, but the subtleties with which the cat and mouse swap places, alongside some great supporting roles from John Cazale and Harrison Ford make it quite an enthralling watch - and certainly one of Hackman's best, most emotionally charged, performances.

Gene Hackman plays a reclusive surveillance mastermind, so terrified by the prospect of tasting his own medicine that he's grown certifiably obsessive-compulsive. He's also a deeply religious altruist, which stands in sharp contrast to the seedy nature of his business and the people who pay him for it. This inevitable internal conflict peaks when he eavesdrops on a similarly skittish young couple and begins to worry that his recordings will lead to their death.

The suspense takes some time to develop from there, as Hackman's gentle spy leads us through the nuts and bolts of his work, navigates a trade show (where, to his dismay, he's recognized) and swings between concern for the subject and obligation to the client. I found the head-down technical bits fascinating, a close inspection of modern mechanical and electronic wizardry in a more primitive form. Today, it seems like almost anything is possible without much extra effort from the operator, and there's a lost sense of challenge and intimacy in hand-waving all the details like that. _The Conversation_ celebrates its knowledge of just how nuanced and difficult this work really was, and while that often slows the pace to a crawl, I enjoyed it all the more for taking the time.

The more dramatic twists and turns deliver, too, but those all arrive in a rush at the very end, an explosion of stress and fright that heralds a jarring tonal shift. It's effective, with a major script-flip moment that lingered with me for some time and a rewarding, if not happy, resolution, but it's also very sudden and overwhelming. The preceding hour of quiet contemplation and neatly-dodged confrontation had almost lulled me into a trance. Hackman is excellent, as is John Cazale, an under-appreciated favorite of director Francis Ford Coppola. Baby-faced Harrison Ford also pops in for a few scenes, one of his earliest film credits, and leaves a lasting impression.

"The Conversation" is a tense thriller that explores how paranoia can take over all aspects of everyday life once something disturbing is discovered.

Paid to eavesdrop on two people in a public place, Harry Caul ( Gene Hackman ) records the conversation and after some work produces a tape with clarity for his client. However Harry is riddled with guilt from a previous job that led to the people involved being hurt and both a woman and child murdered. This leads him to question his actions and clearly the job he is doing.

Despite colleagues, friends and suppliers of surveillance equipment looking up to Harry as one of the best in the business he clearly has lost his edge and his way. This is shown over a period of time through various actions. His flat is easily broken into by his landlord and his mail read. Harry is easily duped at a trade show by a competitor who bugs him with a pen and his girlfriend states "once I saw you up by the staircase , hiding and watching for a whole hour". Meanwhile despite his phone being supposedly unlisted both his landlord and his client have the number and to his surprise call him.

After listening many times to the tapes of the conversation, Harry believes that the two involved fear they could be hurt or even killed for their actions. However a trick is a trick or job is a job ( according to his girlfriend/ escort ) but riddled with guilt he fails to deliver. Once again he shows his unprofessionalism by allowing the tapes to be stolen ( by his girlfriend/ escort ) As the film concludes it becomes clear that conversations can be misinterpreted and may not be as obvious as first thought. Harry's paranoia is compounded even more once he discovers the truth behind "The Conversation," which results in a very satisfying ending.

Unfortunately, it appears with every passing day that the great American paranoid political thrillers of the 60's and 70's, with its strongest work bookended by 'The Manchurian Candidate' (eerily foreseeing the JFK assassination) and 'All the President's Men' (placing a coda of closure on the Watergate scandal), simply haven't aged a day, and are as timely as ever in conceptualizing the palpable fear that ordinary citizens have in those in control of their destinies, namely the police and government of their communities. It's the American ideal that any person born, regardless of circumstances, is in control of their destiny, and that with hard work, guile and determination, can make something of himself. Whether that was ever the case is questionable, but it seems more than ever that the people in power are in control of way more than we could ever suppose, or would ever want to know.

This was a nice smaller-scale film that, incredulously, Coppola was able to dish up in a run that is one of the finest a director would ever have, up there with Hitchcock's in the late 50's-early 60's, and Melville a decade later. It's definitely excellent work by Hackman (along with his Popeye Doyle in the pair of great 'French Connection' movies), and is up there with the greatest dissertations ever about the double-edged sword of surveillance, namely De Palma's 'Blow Out' and Antonioni's 'Blow-Up'.

As a human being, I only wish this film wasn't as important as it is.