Thomas Fowler is a British journalist reporting from 1950's Vietnam (just as the troubles there escalate from France's colonial desperation to America's genocidal idealism), and a man who has lost his passion for the world. Into this cynical and complacent western community arrives young Pyle, a naive and optimistic American medical worker, whose motives are more convoluted than they at first appear. These two men are drawn together by a shared passion for Thomas's mistress, Phoung, a beautiful Vietnamese girl who's the breathing embodiment of De Vinci's enigmatic smile. "The Quiet American" is a highly entertaining adaptation of Graham Greene's novel and while the love triangle, which played such significance in the book, seems more like a tacked on artifice here, the result is as much a thriller as it is a drama, with perfect casting of the two central protagonists and fine acting from both.