perica-43151

This remake of the original Cape Fear from few decades before is not about system failing a well deserving lawyer, but about lawyer failing a client who is given draconian sentence. De Niro, who is well placed playing characters from Hell, here is a heavily tattooed, self made, determined agent of, in character's view at least, real justice that speaks in God tongues. He exposes the lawyer for what he is, and leaves the sorry cheating boomer and his family alive, a punishment worse than death, after his intervention. His victorious face staring, as he descends to the other-world, at the corrupt boomers is a face from the ninth circle of Inferno, where he quite deservedly sent his lawying cheating tormentor for the rest of his days, for eternity. Quite a condemning picture of boomers and lawyers by Scorsese, as they get some justice served by a determined, intelligent and unjustly imprisoned client.

The original Agatha Christie short story, which this follows, is far superior in terms of internal logic to its moralistic and illogical-extra-twist later version of forced serving of the justice which does not ring true. This is much more realistic. Done during the WWI 100 year obsession hysteria of the 2010s, it forces some subplot with questionable narrative about survivor's guilt and youth dying and ageism to the point of euthanasia, as well as some off-putting elderly lovemaking scenes. The acting is mixed, can't compare to ms Dietrich but the Romaine role is well done here too, with its own nuances. Vole character is much better played here than in the overrated 1957 film, whose main advantage is the incomparable, brilliant Charles Laughton, in role played here in completely different tone quite depressingly by fittingly off-putting, both inside and out, actor. This mini-series has however a very convincing lesbomaid cat-killer played by Monica Dolan, cat killers do indeed deserve a noose even if they did not kill a rich lady, as cats are infinitely more worthy than rich English gigolo-users. Overall, a gloomy but different take on the piece, whose weakest link is inferior Toby Jones (as ugly as old Laughton, if not much, much worse, but with zero redeeming charm and sickeningly boring gloominess), and the strongest point is getting rid of an extra contrived twist that Agatha put into her story so for "justice" to prevail. As for the WWI subplot, it is not bad, some say it adds to the story, other notice that it in fact takes a bit from it. The letter-twist part was also a bit weaker here but otherwise plot and acting wrt twist and repeated viewings are much better than in the 1957 movie, that is otherwise more entertaining, if a bit overrated - here we have gloomy nauseating realism vs flashy twisty captivating but illogical movie-making of 60 years before.

The movie is captivating to watch, with little amusing bits about nurse and barrister and cigars and drinks, but its manipulation falls a bit short of being as brilliant as it might seem at first glance. As soon as the barrister smells something fishy, it is clear what game wife was playing, however, it still comes with an extra surprise about the murderer's girlfriend. But on closer inspection the movie is unrealistically manipulative, as even actors were manipulated and hence the murderer plays it in an unconvincing - or rather false - way given the twist ending. The barrister encourages murder, the murder is also not convincing, people do not just drop dead like that. But that can be forgiven, misleading acting - obtained by holding actor in the dark, falls however a bit short of masterpieces like Usual suspects and is more like the Sixth sense. But given the old age of the piece, it is still a compelling work, a few details short of perfection. Also, the whole young lover embrace ending is contrived and illogical if you think about it, given what had happened one might expect the murderer to be more cautious.