There is one scene– actually, two or three– in “Three Days of the Condor” (1975), Sydney Pollack’s brilliant thriller about a rogue CIA agent– that really is quite preposterous. Having caught up to the mastermind of the evil secret rogue CIA network, Turner (Redford) forces him to reveal the secret purpose of his group by pointing a gun at him threateningly.
Of course, this makes people tell the truth, instantly.
Of course not.
It makes people say whatever it is they think you want to hear, so they can live another day. And so Leonard Atwood tells Turner what he thinks he wants to hear. No he doesn’t. He tells him the whole truth, so the story can be concluded.
[Spoiler] The scene ends brilliantly, however, when Max Von Sydow, playing a hit man named Joubert, enters the room. We have been prepared to believe he is there to kill Turner but, in fact, he turns his gun on Atwood and shoots him in the head.
He explains to Condor (Turner/Redford) that he was hired by the CIA to dispose of Atwood who was about to become an embarrassment. Since his contract to kill Condor was with Atwood, it is now null and void. He offers Condor a ride back to town. A little surprisingly, Condor accepts. Joubert then gives Condor an astute, restrained, intelligent explanation of how things really are. There is no future for Condor in America.
Condor returns to New York where he contacts Higgins and, ridiculously, informs him that he has turned over documents to the New York Times to reveal the rogue CIA group to the world. Wikileaks, 35 years ahead of it’s time! Condor strides off, triumphant, but Higgins yells after him, “What makes you think they’ll print it?”. The last shot, a freeze frame, is Condor’s face melting into the crowd…. with a flicker of doubt.
2022-05-10: We now know that the New York Times held off publishing a scoop at the request of the government. I forget the details but I will find them and link to it here when I do.