The Quiet American is quite riveting

In The Quiet American, London Times reporter Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) is enjoying all the pleasures life in Saigon can offer.

On the run from a broken marriage back in London, he consoles himself with some local opium and the pleasures of a beautiful Vietnamese girl Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen).

Everything is going along nicely until a young American aid worker called Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) appears.

He instantly falls in love with young Phuong and vows to not only save her, but to save the country as well.

Soon the to men find themselves in northern battlefield of Phat Diem, up to their knees in bodies and up to their necks in trouble.

Caine gives his usual reliable performance as the battle-weary hack, while Fraser cleverly moulds the American Pyle into the kind of character you want to smack, or at least send back to where he belongs.

Drama, 15, ****