For once, a genuinely psychological thriller.
Comment
02/09/06
Klute (1971)
96
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:28
Fresh:27
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 5 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Adapting the traditional structure of 1940s film noir detective movies, director Alan Pakula created a thriller that addressed the 1970s issue of the compromises faced by a woman trying to maintain... [More]
Starring: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Roy Scheider, Rita Gam
Director: Alan J. Pakula
Reviews for Klute
Top CriticInformed in part by the conventions of film noir...Klute manages to distil them all into something highly original and distinctly unsettling.
04/17/01
Top CriticFonda is simply a revelation, beautiful, sassy and streetwise, and yet hauntingly vulnerable. She deserved her Oscar in a role she has never bettered.
08/30/09
Top CriticA knock-out
06/12/04
Even today it remains difficult to over-praise the depth and reality Fonda brought to her character, or to overstate how completely she set the pace for actresses in the '70s.
11/06/01
Fonda and Sutherland are at the top of their game in this mystery/thriller that also provides a fasinating look into the mind and soul of a top NYC callgirl.
03/10/03
One of the most important and influential movies of the early 1970s.
09/15/09
An exciting murder-mystery story that serves as a fascinating study of the complex inner life of an attractive call girl, played by Jane Fonda.
02/07/02
[Fonda] makes all the right choices, from the mechanics of her walk and her voice inflection to the penetration of the girl's raging psyche. It is a rare performance.
08/30/09
Top CriticWorth a look for Fonda, who finally became an actress with this role.
03/05/02
It’s just a shame a movie with so much visual superiority gets hampered by an inferior script.
03/05/02
With Fonda and Sutherland, you have actors who understand and sympathize with their characters, and you have a vehicle worthy of that sort of intelligence. So the fact that the thriller stuff doesn't always work isn't so important.
10/23/04
Top CriticPakula, when he is not indulging in subjective camera, strives to give his film the look of structural geometry, but despite the sharp edges and dramatic spaces and cinema presence out of Citizen Kane, it all suggests a tepid, rather tasteless mush.
05/21/03
Top CriticThanks to its complexities of character and morality, Klute creates a proposition for the audience in which there's no such thing as simple pleasure, even if we’re paying.
06/09/02
Klute was fresh when it came out in the 1970s, but time has taken away much of its boldness.
01/01/00
Sutherland is either an excellent sounding board for this nuanced portrait or he's a big zero, probably both. Fonda, however, transcends her limitations, making the most of her often forced quality as an actress.
08/30/09
Top CriticA gripping suspense thriller; Fonda tough and vulnerable deserved her Oscar here.
10/23/02
Fonda and Sutherland sizzle. A great story too.
10/15/04
Fonda's riveting performance is impossible to shake
08/04/02
Fonda won an Oscar. Roy Scheider is her nasty pimp!
04/22/05
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