Sorcerer

An oil well is on fire and the only way to extinguish the flames is to dynamite it.

The company has plenty but it’s been left to sweat and so the two hundred mile journey to the well now looks like suicide.

Six cases of volatile explosives, two trucks and four desperate men…

William Friedkin is a badass. He is one of a small group of American directors that make films that couldn’t give a damn if you like them or not – sure, I’m the first to admit that I don’t like half of them (including The Exorcist, 1973) but the rest are pure gold and Sorcerer is no exception.

So what makes it so good? Firstly, and most obviously, it’s a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s suspense masterpiece The Wages Of Fear (1953) and plenty of people hate remakes, especially when the original is so highly regarded. That it is just as good only makes it all the more satisfying.

Secondly, non of the main characters are truly likable. These guys are true anti-heroes, not the modern 2D Riddick / Punisher ‘edgy cool’ type but the proper 70’s variety. Here you have a group of grade-A scumbags and the film wallows in it. Why else would the first twenty minutes be there? Friedkin wants us to know that he is gonna make us root for a hitman, a terrorist, a mobster and, worst of all, a banker (who obviously didn’t get a great pension). Out of those four Scanlon (Roy Scheider) seemingly takes the central role on the basis that he might steal collection money from priests but he doesn’t carry a gun. Even the minor characters and extras are less than reputable – in a neat twist on the original’s Bimba who fled persecution in Hitler’s Germany the bar owner is a Nazi in hiding whilst a bride in an early scene sports a black eye.

Finally, there is the reason why we care about these guys – the tension. The slow building feeling of danger that starts as soon as we know that the dynamite is unsafe and rockets the moment they start the engines. Whether driving along the stable(ish) dirt tracks or caught in the middle of one of several fantastic set pieces (including the daddy of all rickety bridges) Sorcerer remains white knuckle stuff and the nihilism manages to outrun the film itself.

…as I said the genius of Friedkin is that he doesn’t seem to care what people think. He makes films that suggest an attitude of take it or leave it and as a result we get films like Sorcerer that just feel dangerous.

A very realistic film with strong atmosphere and suspense, memorable, great soundtrack and realistic. Highly recommended.

This is a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot's 'The Wages of Fear',arguably the greatest action/suspense film ever made. So why bother to redo something that was perfect to begin with? William Friedkin refuses to provide any answer to that question. There are some good moments in this story of men driving trucks of nitro-glycerine through the South American jungle (the trucks driving across a collapsing rope bridge for one) but nothing to match the set pieces (and the awesomely fatalistic tone)in the original. Scheider is no Yves Montand and Friedkin, in this instance, is no Clouzot.

See this film for curiosity value only but seek out the original 'Wages of Fear' at all costs: after a purposely slow opening it builds, via one amazing suspense sequence after another (with shocks, too, along the way) into the most thrilling action film I've ever seen.