While tear gas wafted through the streets of America, Hollywood stuck to its scentless paeans to the counterculture, the few exceptions coming from indies such as Robert Kramer’s Ice (1970), Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969), and Jack Nicholson’s Drive, He Said (1971). An overlooked entry, The Revolutionary is based on the prescient 1967 novel by Dutch transplant Hans Koningsberger about a dissident whose slow transformation from disgruntled philosophy student to radical leafleteer is carefully rendered here by Jon Voight, fresh from Midnight Cowboy. Though the film was shot in London, the locale is designated as “somewhere in the free world,” an immediate irony as unrest (and its suppression) spreads like prairie fire. Voight’s character, simply called “A,” eventually deserts the army only to find himself part of an assassination plot—both him and the device in his hand a ticking time bomb. Like a slow fuse, The Revolutionary conscientiously ponders, “How did it come to this?”

—Steve Seid

• Written by Hans Koningsberger, based on his novel. Photographed by Brian Probyn. With Jon Voight, Jennifer Salt, Robert Duvall, Seymour Cassel. (100 mins, Color, 35mm, From MGM)