Probably brilliant at the time, but doesn't stand up to modern movies
Every Wednesday I head over to my dad's for dinner with him and my brothers. I bring over a movie for us to watch after dinner, and lately I've been going down the imdb top 250 list to try and find movies that none (or almost none) of us have seen. This is the 2nd "old movie" that I brought over, the first being The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Both disappointed all of us. Especially given the very high rating here on imdb.
My dad says that this was cutting edge back in the day, but laughingly admits to how dated it is compared to newer movies. Same with the Eastwood picture. Watching these is like watching old sports games from the 50's where the average football lineman was around 6'0" 250, or the average 40yd dash time was 5 sec, etc... the greatest of an era might not even make it to the pros of today. That's how I feel about these movies, NxNW in particular.
This felt like an early James Bond movie, or maybe a Bourne movie. Yet, everything about it is slower, less exciting, less entertaining. No exciting fights, minimal stunts, obvious set-pieces (we watched it on bluray, which after reading the forums here seems to magnify the obviousness of old sfx).
There's also just something about the way people talk and behave in old movies versus new. The dialogue is stilted and fake. Everyone is prim and proper, no swearing, etc...it's the type of acting you would expect in a play rather than a window into real life.
Getting into specific scenes, the plane scene was laughable. It was like someone thought, "What would be the most difficult way to kill someone? Oh, I know, try to run him down with a prop plane, which would cause the plane to crash and kill everyone inside. Or wait, let's try to gun him down while flying at 200mph instead of doing a drive-by or waiting in the field with a rifle." And then it crashes into the tanker truck which isn't even moving at the time they crash into it? Wow.
I think this movie's rating is held up by nostalgic memories of people seeing it as kids and how impressive it was back then. If you put this movie in a room of 20-40yr olds who've never seen it or heard of it, it would fall off the top 250 like a rock. But hey, maybe that's true of all old movies, and the rating system is supposed to be relevant to the time the movie was made. If that's the case, and someone going down the list is simply looking for the best movies ever made, then most old movies should be skipped because people have just gotten better at making movies and have more tools available to them now. Much like a 1950's Cadillac, what was great then, wouldn't even sell today.
6/10 rating from me. Watch it to say you have, but wouldn't watch a 2nd time.
p.s. I really liked 12 angry men, which is probably one of the only old movies I thought was good. Maybe because it's all just in one room and psychology is the same today as it was then.