Hot Movie Takes: North by Northwest
This post may container spoilers for the movie. It’s my hot take while watching or directly after watching the movie. Don’t expect too much from this post.
Finally, this has been the first movie on the list so far that I actually liked. Going into this movie, I was not excited at all. I was under the impression that this was a 2 hour movie where a guy walks along a dirt road while being chased by an airplane. It turns out that this movie is actually about a case of mistaken identity. The plot revolves around Roger Thornhill, who is an advertising executive. He is at the lobby of a hotel when he is mistaken for the covert spy George Kaplan. He is kidnapped and brought to the house of a Mr. Townsend. Townsend accuses him of being George Kaplan and after refusing to believe that he isn’t, Townsend attempts to have him killed but the plot is foiled. Roger attempts to get back in contact with Townsend but when he does he discovers that the person who was trying to kill him was an imposter when he meets the real Townsend. He only gets a second with him though because the assassins kill Townsend and frame Roger for the murder. Roger escapes and is now fleeing for this life.
He gets on a train to Chicago to try and find the real Kaplan. While on the train, he meets Eve Kendall. His plan to find Kaplan in Chicago doesn’t work out and he is confronted by the CIA who informs Roger that Kaplan is made up but they need him to continue playing the role as Kaplan to protect Eve. The CIA flies him to Mount Rushmore. Eve shoots Roger with blanks to make the people trying to kill Roger think that he’s dead. Roger then goes to try and save Eve which he does.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I thought the writing was good, there were some good zingers sprinkled throughout the movie, and I thought the acting was good. I wasn’t as huge of a fan of the ending though. It’s very abrupt and really catches you off-guard. There was also some inconsistencies. For instance, he calls his mother from the police station, but they spent like an entire 2 minutes at the start of the movie letting us know that his mother doesn’t have a phone in her new place and can’t be reached. Also, I’m not sure if maybe things were different back when this was filmed, but I have a feeling that you can’t get close enough to climb around on the face of Mount Rushmore.
I also really didn’t buy into the ‘this movie is very suspenseful’. Maybe it’s just me but I did not really find the movie suspenseful at all, especially the scene where he’s on the dirt road. I think part of the problem is that we’ve already seen Roger escape like 6 near-death experiences already so at this point we know nothing is going to happen to him, no matter how close the bullets from the plane may get. Overall, I would rate this movie a solid 8/10.
