★★★★★ 5
Harrowing Cult Classic!
If you are considering this film, no doubt you know that it is a remake (or hommage to) the classic French thriller Wages of Fear. Chances are everyone is also familiar with the outlines of the plot--a group desparate men agree to transport cargoes of unstable dynamite through 200 miles of South American jungle to put out an oilfield fire. Of course the drivers know they have voluneered for a suicidal job and the odds are against the survival of any of the truck drivers. That alone puts Sorcerer (along with Runaway Train & Sam Peckinpaw's The Wild Bunch) into the rarest category of films: the big-budget Hollywood existential! My view, a distinct minority view, is that William Friedkin's remake surpasses the orginal as an exercise in suspense and harrowing, relentless action. Like many other fans of this movie, my introduction came during the 1980s on cable movie channels. Few people saw Sorcerer on the big screen. The film was initally panned by critics and cited as a prime example of a young director with too much ego, power and money creating yet another Hollywood box-office disaster. Gradually, the film acquired an audience and a legacy through word of mouth. Today many critics see Sorcerer as the last great product of the seventies generation of young Hollywood film-makers. It is no accident that Sorcerer and Star Wars opened the same day!In many ways, the film marks the transition from the courageous experimental Hollywood of the seventies to the family blockbusters and action franchises of today. Fans of Sorceror appreciate the director's commitment to the story of desperate men risking everything to escape a very realistic, modern version of hell on earth. The opening backstory sequences show us how a small-time New Jersey criminal, a disgraced French banker, a Mexican assassin, and an Arab terrorist find themselves driving old trucks that can (and will) explode at any moment. The film has a hypnotic, dreamlike feel and the viewer will be drawn into a dark journey that can only end one way. The score by the German band Tangerine Dream is at once seductive and chilling and contributes to the growing atmosphere of susense and dread. If you like stylish action and relentless story-telling, you should not miss this film. The DVD quality is OK but perhaps we might hope for a remastered director's cut with better special features at some point.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2010
