| J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors | Release Date: December 18, 1979 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
5
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Sometimes flat, The Human Factor is nonetheless a lucidly impressive return to form for the 73-year-old director. It's not really a thriller at all, but an understated, uncompromising dissection of an event: an anatomy of the murder of a soul. [11 Feb 1980, p.82]
Graham Greene's low-keyed, highly absorbing 1978 novel of an aging English double agent finding himself trapped into defecting to Moscow and leaving his family behind may have seemed like ideal material for Otto Preminger's style of dispassionate ambiguity, but helmer doesn't seem up to the occasion, bringing little atmosphere or feeling to the delicate ticks of the story.
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A cerebral approach to espionage and defection, often suspenseful but sometimes dull. [26 Jan 1980]
The complications of international diplomacy have been ridiculously simplified -- a bare room with an obviously pasteboard view symbolizes Soviet duplicity. Scenes that ought to be suspenseful are put into flashbacks, so that you know in advance that the dangers were survived. [18 Apr 1980, p.19]
Exquistely written but treacherously threadbare Greene. The author's style doesn't emerge through the filters of Tom Stoppard's foreshortened screenplay and Preminger's monotonous direction, which keeps the exposition at such a low energy level that the scenes feel instantly depleted. [18 Apr 1980, p.E1]
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