Rating: 
Summary: the biter bit
Review: Harry Caul is a geek.
Harry Caul goes insane because he has no connection with humanity.Coppola and Hackman compel you to watch his disintegration.
Along the way are some homilies on paranoia and technology, however the central tragedy is that Harry Caul is so caught up in maintaining his mastery of bugging technology that he fails (or is unable) to hear an alternative inflection in a passionate exchange. A remarkable achievement but with some editing and scripting roughness. Recommended for any comprehensive collection.
Rating: 
Summary: This movie goes like a classical music piece.
Review: This movie is a sheer and distinct case study.
The case is, the lonesome by choice and by profession, anti-hero Harry Caul, a private surveillance expert and his own paranoid very blocked world. The title refers to the task he has been assigned to, to record a conversation between two people in a crowded square during a lunch time break. He succeeded in his mission at first, but when he tried to live inside his task, he failed in his life. I recommend you; do not criticize this deliberately slow going movie while it is running.
This movie moves like flowing molasses. It reveals its own layers and secrets with each going moment, get assured that you will be completely satisfied when it ends. Consider how close the director succeeded in creating the sense of the overwhelming paranoia, at first you get skeptic, asking if Caul is overacting in his cautious way of life, then you get yourself skeptic too, imagining the number of conspirators surrounding him and may have roles in the crime. The movie depends on the understanding of the screenplay by its creators.
The theme concentrates on longing to, retrieving, and then consequently the losing of believes; in love, personal capabilities and maybe in religious believes. Look for the motive that began all this conflicts. It is the search for love. The love he observed between the two young people of his surveillance task. The love that moved him backward towards his past, in feeling the guilt towards the victims of his previous tasks,
And forward towards his search for love and meaning. This motive that reminded him of the necessity being human, of asking questions about nature if his job. Is it just to be a delivery man or to be like an artist who reacts with the elements of his art work, the motive to be an insider instead of being an outsider. And then comes the revelation and its consequences, when he realizes how far he was wrong, fragile and unsafe.
So he chooses to surrender and escape to his last (maybe) safe refuge, his own saxophone. Just like its music score, this movie goes like a classical music piece.
With perfect tempo and without one unnecessarily line. Notice these two considerable key scenes.
1-While the conversation between Hackman and Ford in the convention, there is that man, who carries a Saxophone which might or not be tapped, might or not be replaced by the one in the Caul's apartment. And the latter is might or not be the only thing that could be tapped and left without checking in Caul's apartment.
2- Caul's dream vision of the hotel room no.773 is as the same as in the real hotel. We cannot assume that the director was very conservative about the money spent on locations. But of course it was meant to be like that, in order to implement the dreamy reality of the final act of this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Listen up! Get this film... (4.5 stars)
Review: I echo other comments that this is perhaps Coppola's best film in its characterization, simmering plot development, and pace, all carefully crafted to offer a unique vision of the world of the professional eavesdropper. Made during the paranoia surrounding Watergate, "The Conversation" manages to resonate more today. I'm not talking Patriot Act or the War on Terrorism. I'm talking about the Internet. Harry Caul hides behind technology, uses it to connect with people, yet cannot connect with real-live human beings. His one "friend" -- the colleague played by the late John Cazale -- he even fails to relate to, unless it's strictly about the work. In the end, Harry's isolation becomes complete when the technology he uses becomes his jailer. The final panning shot of this film is worth the entire DVD alone, but the commentary tracks provide priceless insight into the mind of Coppola at the time when he was still an outsider himself.
Rating:
Summary: SPINE-TINGLING SUSPENSE! AND THIS WAS MADE IN 1974!
Review: You have seen "Who-Dun-Its." This is more like a riveting "Who-Will-Do-It."
What a passionate movie about a surveillance man, who by profession records conversations for clients, for purposes unknown to him (how a client uses the recording is not his business.) During one of such recordings, he believes he has captured the plotting of a murder. A gratingly intriguing quandary ensues, one that'll have you glued to the screen until the very end! For one thing, the movie does NOT feel like 1974 with its immaculate DVD transfer. If it weren't for the music, which is markedly 70s, or the nature of telephones (the type you turn with your fingers, instead of buttons) you really couldn't tell it was the seventies. Secondly, Coppola did a fabulous job of making the technology credible to viewers. Pay attention to minor details, the film makes no presumptions about audience's intelligence. For instance, you'll also be taken around an actual symposium of surveillance tech, and presented a detailed scene where surv pros talk about possible ways of making recordings for a specific case. Apart from the mystery that forms an absolutely electric undercurrent for the theme, it's also a great lesson on how sophisticated technology means very little without the human brain to make the correct lecture of "objective" results. Quite simply, this movie is must-watch material, and not only for tech aficianados!
Rating: 
Summary: Great acting, confusing and annoying plot.
Review: I agree with the reviewer from Maryland. The movie was confusing, lacked suspense, and got very irritating. Gene Hackman was excellent, and so was John Cazale, but the other characters were very flawed and I can hardly remeber anything that happens with them. The plot was confusing. Why did the boss die instead of the two lovers? And what did "When The Red Red Robin Comes A Bop Bop Boppin' Along" have to do with this? Skip this one; it is too confusing and should be forgotten.
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Summary: George Orwell warned us....
Review: Most of us know at least one person who can compartmentalize her or his life, separating business from pleasure, career from family, etc. Such people have exceptional focus and determination. Brilliantly portrayed by Gene Hackman, Harry Caul is such a person. (Even his girlfriend Amy, played by Teri Garr, does not know where he lives.) Harry is an expert technician who is retained to conduct electronic surveillance of those identified by his clients. In effect, he is a high-tech private investigator. What he records becomes evidence of illegal, unethical, or immoral behavior. Harry has no personal interest in the private lives he invades surreptitiously. But then he accepts an assignment and begins to suspect that the subjects of his surveillance will be murdered. The "compartments" in his life which Harry has so carefully separated begin to merge (albeit gradually) and he begins to have second thoughts about how he earns a living. Of course, he is better qualified than any other character in the film to understand (if not yet fully appreciate) the implications of an invasion of privacy. Under Francis Ford Coppola's brilliant direction, Harry begins to feel paranoid. I view The Conversation as a dark film because its raises so many questions which seem even more relevant today than they were in 1974. How secure can any life be? Who is accumulating personal as well as professional data about whom? Why? Satellites can take photographs of a license plate. All of the data on computer hard drives can be recovered. DNA tests can determine whether or not a monarch was poisoned hundreds of years ago. In so many ways, "there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide" from modern technologies. What intrigues me most about Harry Caul is his growing sense of dislocation and vulnerability as the conflict between his personal conscience and professional objectivity intensifies. The assignment for The Director (Robert Duvall) to conduct surveillance on Ann (Cindy Williams) and Mark (Frederic Forest) serves as a trigger which activates self-doubts and insecurities which Harry has presumably suppressed and denied for many years. For me, the final scene is most memorable because it?s so ambiguous. To what extent has Harry invaded his own privacy? What has he learned? How will he now proceed with his personal life and career? For whatever reasons, only in recent years has this film received the praise it deserved but was denied when it first appeared almost 20 years ago. It seems to get even better each time it is seen again, especially in the DVD format which offers clearer image and sound as well as several excellent supplementary items such as commentaries by Coppola and his supervising editor Walter Murch as well as a "Close-Up on the Conversation" featurette.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful pacing, intruiging moviemaking
Review: A big fan of Gene Hackman, I have had this movie in my collection for a while and I keep coming back to it. Yes, it is slow, but as an american film, it stands out because of its well executed performances, sinister plot development and brilliant lead character played by Hackman. It is not so much a thriller as it is a study in the human character, and it allows us to study several of them simultaneously. I consider this a must have for every Hackman fan, and certainly also for every serious movie fan.
Rating:
Summary: One of Coppola's best movies
Review: Realy one of Coppola's best works.Starring Gene Hackman as the surveillance expert Harry Caul.Harry is a very complex character,because of his lonley weird life.I think this is the greatest performance by Hackman. The supporting cast is well chosen [Including The late John Cazale,Allen Garfield,Cindy Williams,Harrsion ford and a small
role played by Robert Duvall]. Written,produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola who was inspired by the British movie Blow Up [1966]. Also the music score by David Shire is wonderfull.The Conversation is one of the greatest movies ever made and lies beside great movies like [The godfather and Once upon a time in America].
Rating:
Summary: He would kill us if he got the chance
Review: The conversation is one of the greatest movies ever made.
Written,produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola
[Director of the Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse now] and stars Gene Hackman as Harry Caul,a paranoid surveillance expert and a Great supporting cast.
With the Beatiful piano music by David Shire and the photgrophy of Bill Buter watch this great masterpiece of 1970's.
Rating:
Summary: Slow....... Very Slow!
Review: I tried watching this for about 45 minutes, and turned it off! Granted Hackman's character study is interesting, but the film was so slow... it's like one of those Kubrick films where the camera focuses on the subject for a whole 10-15 minutes. Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about. If you want to watch this, you gotta be be verrrry patient.
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