Metacritic reviews

Star Michael Caine, who gives one of the great, inescapably moving performances in a career filled with them, based his character on personal impressions of the late author. And Greene's lifelong concern with moral ambiguity gives this film a texture and complexity that movies don't usually achieve.

The narrative is lean, the supporting performances are solid, and, perhaps most crucially, the emotional tone of the piece is spot-on.

Ever since the movie made a brief appearance late last year to qualify for Oscar consideration, Mr. Caine's performance has been hailed as the best of his career, and surely that's true.

Fowler may be the richest character of Mr. Caine's screen career. Slipping into his skin with an effortless grace, this great English actor gives a performance of astonishing understatement whose tone wavers delicately between irony and sadness.

Thanks to Caine's subtly nuanced performance, there's a deeper dimension to everything. He's snappily ironic at times, sometimes amazingly delicate, always engaging.

In so many ways, The Quiet American speaks volumes.

The key to why the new ''American'' is so good and so true, though, is Brendan Fraser as the title character.

Even as The Quiet American loses focus and urgency, Caine's performance keeps the doomed spirit of Greene's hero intact.

One of Caine's meatiest roles, and he handles it with power, humanity and remarkable emotional fluidity; from the opening moments, an enormous amount comes through his eyes alone.

The movie adds nothing to the political dialogue, and the love story is mood-killingly sad. The lure of the exotic can be deceptive, it says. The moody, murky atmosphere leaves nothing clear except that mixed intentions will always yield mixed results.