Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
David Locke is a world-weary American journalist who has been sent to cover a conflict in northern Africa, but he makes little progress with the story. When he discovers the body of a stranger who looks similar to him, Locke assumes the dead man's identity. However, he soon finds out that the man was an arms dealer, leading Locke into dangerous situations. Aided by a beautiful woman, Locke attempts to avoid both the police and criminals out to get him.
Antonioni's late masterpiece earns top marks across most categories. The cinematography is genuinely exceptional — the famous unbroken seven-minute final shot through a grille window is one of cinema's most celebrated sequences, and the sun-bleached African and Spanish locations are rendered with extraordinary compositional intelligence. The acting, particularly Nicholson's restrained, existentially drifting performance, is well above average — he submerges his usual charisma into a fascinating passivity. Novelty is high: the film's meditation on identity, escape, and the dissolution of self is executed in a singular Antonioni register that no other filmmaker could replicate — slow, elliptical, philosophically austere. The ending is justly celebrated as one of the great final sequences in world cinema. Plot earns a solid 3 rather than 4 — the thriller mechanics are deliberately undernourished, functioning more as pretext than story, which is intentional but means the narrative itself offers little conventional satisfaction.