I... For Icarus (1979)

I like conspiracy thriller, like The Parallax View or Three Days of the Condor for example, but this one is my absolute favorite. You get an intelligent, minimalist, well written, well acted Suspense Thriller with a great Ennio Morricone Soundtrack. I think this Soundtrack is one of his best, and i am a big Morricone Fan.The Flair and Style of this Movie is typical European 70ies, like the Costa-Gavras Movies (Z, The Confession). This Movie is almost documentary-like and it knows how to build an enormous tension all the way up to the end. You can feel the paranoia in this movie.There is so much more to tell about the movie, but i always think that is better to know less about a movie before you watch them, just to be surprised what happen.

I'm not tired to say this is one of the best political thrillers ever made. The story takes place in a fictional state, but obviously it deals with the murder of Kennedy. A truthful and honest district attorney (played by Yves Montand) does not believe that the murder was planned and executed by the single man Daslow (=Oswald) and though all other officials want to close the case he continuous to investigate with his team.The screenplay is written tight and fast and holds the tension till the end. Just the part dealing with the Milgram experiment about authorities is (though not uninteresting) a bit out of place. The ending sequence - explaining who Icarus really is - partly shot in slow motion and intensified by a Morricone soundtrack is the most powerful sequence I have ever seen in a movie.

In every aspect a true classic. Brilliant script, good camera work plus the outraging performance of the french actors. I see no necessity whatsoever to draw a comparison to "JFK" as it was produced 22 years earlier and forms part of a completely different movie genre. Especially enjoyable is also the music in the picture which was surprisingly written by Ennio Morricone and is as usual a delightful experience.Interesting: Watching the credits at the end, it can be observed that the final shot has the form of an I. "I as In Icarus".

Henri Verneuil was one of France's top movie makers and this film is a prime example of that. It is based on the JFK assassination but takes place in a fictitious country ( not France or America ) and treats the whole affair in great detail. Although the language of the film is French, the décors are deliberately impersonal and not typical of any country or indeed typical of all countries (!! if you see what I mean ) Yves Montand is excellent as the investigator, I find this kind of role suits him well just as in Police Python 357 - a solitary man making tendious and throrough investigations The film is constructed in such a way that you never get bored even through the phsychological test sequence which is admittedly a little over long. The film has not been shown on French TV for some time and is not available on DVD here but I see Police Python 357 appears recently on DVD so I 'm sure that I comme Icare will surely follow suit.