People are voting emotionally.

Absolutely brilliant

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Who knew that the Golden Gate was made of cardboard instead of steel? Obviously not the producers and the director of this garbage. They filled the film with cardboard characters and standard tripe.Matt Damon plays a guy who wanders around morosely spouting below stock lines trying to reconcile his life as a Federal Agent. He works in Chinatown for years but throughout a whole film set in Chinatown not one damn person speaks Chinese ever in the film! Throughout the film the Chinese actors and actresses speak fluent 1980's style English. They all dress drably except when it is time to show of Ms. Chen. Then she wears a bright red tittie-forming top that makes her stand out against the drabness all around Chinatown. The hokiness of the story and characters dribs and drabs making one dread each next line of dialog for it is obviously going to be worse than the prior one.Meanwhile...like an Okie of John Steinbeck's...Matt Damon never is seen having a home in Chinatown at all. All he does is wander around from scene to scene. There is not one shred of him being a realistic human at all.This film is so awful it makes one want to throw themselves off the Golden Gate bridge.

Despite the ridiculous comments about the movie "not taking seriously the Communist threat" there was no Communist threat in the 50's. The only threat was that of the right-wing zealots who, in their crooked hysteria, did their best to destroy the Consitution and the Bill of Rights for their own political gains! Sort of sounds like today, doesn't it? The movie is very well done, although a little hazy in the script but excellent performances by the leads make up for it! The ending is a little too sudden and a little too fantasy laden for my tastes but I get the impression that it was meddled with by the studio types.

Hey, don't these screenwriters know how to read any more? I mean this screenplay is so rank with vague cliches & timeless imprecision, it's beyond comprehension. There's no cohesion here, narrative, emotional, political or otherwise. It's beyond embarrassment. Woof. Only poor Matt Dillon gives it any dignity or professionality. What is he, the indie's Jeff Bridges? The guy deserves some kind of special award. Definitely.

I'm no big fan of the FBI, but the story line of this movie is ridiculous! The writer and director couldn't have care less about telling a realistic story of the communist threat in the 1950's and the social and political changes of the 1960's. Instead, the FBI and its agents are portrayed as evil and devoid of integrity. When agent Kevin Walker (Matt Dillon) finally realizes the "error of his ways", he turns into a drunk and degenerate who eventually commits suicide. Technically, the movie is well done. The cinematography is first rate, with San Francisco filmed it all of its glory. But, as for the left wing "brain washing", I'll pass, and I recommend that you do the same.