new to DVD: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

When Captain America: The Winter Soldier first came out, a lot of critics liked to talk about how the cast included Robert Redford, and about how Redford had previously starred in the spy thriller Three Days of the Condor. At the time, I read these reviews with a roll of my eyes, figuring that it was just critics doing what they often like to do: throwing in random trivia to prove how versed they are in film history.  However, now that I've seen the movie, I finally know what they're talking about; for those familiar with Three Days of the Condor, Redford's presence really does add an extra layer to the story. Allow me to explain . . . 

3 Days of the Condor starred Redford as a naive CIA analyst who finds himself involved in a conspiracy involving deadly corruption within the agency. I don't remember if the line "don't trust anyone" is actually uttered at any point during the film, but if it wasn't, the thought certainly was a constant theme throughout the movie. Condor was, above all, a paranoia thriller.  Despite the veneer of blockbuster action and super-hero trappings, The Winter Soldier really does serve as a modern-day equivalent to Redford's earlier film. Yesterday's commies may have been replaced by today's terrorists, but the paranoia persists, now more than ever.

Chris Evans returns as Steve Rogers. The back-story is that 1940s scientists turned Rogers into a "super soldier"; his athletic abilities, fighting skills, and physical fitness are supposed to represent "the peak of human potential" rather than actual super powers, although the line is drawn pretty thin considering how many times Rogers emerges unscathed from blows and falls that would either cripple or kill a regular human being.

After Rogers's adventures in Captain America and The Avengers, good ol' Steve finds himself feeling like his life has no purpose anymore; the fight against undeniably evil would-be world-conquerors that Rogers led in the previous two films has been replaced by missions of moral ambiguity and questionable practical merit, forcing Rogers to wonder, "is this all there is?"

The story is set into motion by an assassination attempt on Colonel Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of SHIELD (the Marvel movies' equivalent to the Department of Homeland Security). The most disturbing aspect of the attack on Fury, aside from its brutality and the number of people involved, is that it doesn't take Rogers long to learn that it was an inside job. It seems SHIELD has been infiltrated by the very terrorists that the agency has been created to combat, and what's worse, the conspiracy may lead all the way to the top -- could the seemingly benign Defense Secretary Alexander Pierce (Redford) be somehow involved?

Redford's casting is doubly significant; not only was Redford once the naive hero of these types of movies, but there's even a physical resemblance impossible to ignore; Redford himself could have played Captain America, if these movies had been made a few decades ago. It's that very corruption of innocence that is at the heart of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Yes, there are a lot of action scenes, more so than in traditional political thrillers. There are chases, explosions, fist-fights, and gun-fights. A lot of gun-fights. But at its heart, The Winter Soldier is more about the real-life dangers of the modern-day interplay between paranoia and politics. While other Marvel movies deal with fantastic super-powers, monstrous creatures, and fallen gods, the storyline here is best encapsulated when Rogers announces to  all the employees of SHIELD that villainous Hydra agents are everywhere and that one "could even be standing right beside you." I don't remember if anyone ever said "don't trust anyone" in Three Days of the Condor, but people say it here. As well they should.