Le Convoi de la peur

A remake of Henri-George Cluzot's 1953 film The Wages of Fear (also on DVD in a lovely Criterion Disc), this William Friedkin film stars Roy Scheider (at his weary, doomed finest) as one of four men exiled to an unnamed South American country by their mistakes and crimes. Trapped in squalor (and it's damn convincing looking squalor, too, far beyond the sunbaked black-and-white compositions of Wages of Fear; this film looks like it's leaving mud on your shoes), unable to return to the lives they abandoned, they're driven by circumstance to accept a normally unthinkable job. They have to drive old, unstable dynamite from its storage site hundreds of miles over mountain terrain and washed-out roads to the location of an oil well fire so the blaze can be snuffed out. The pay is exorbitant -- but it's commiserate to the danger. The risks are colossal ... and they ultimately have no choice.

Sorcerer is tense, suspenseful film-making at its finest; you become physically uncomfortably during this film thanks to the incredible sense that at any minute our heroes would literally be blown to hell. (I mean, we all walk around with the philosophical knowledge we could die at any moment, but talk about your concrete metaphors ... ) Friedkin creates a palpable sense of place, and Scheider is immensely powerful as a man whose every move suggests that he knows he's doomed. Taut with suspense, completely convincing and breathtakingly human, Sorcerer is an unfairly maligned film that delivers in every way.

And the Score is unique and nightmarish. A new DVD would be welcome to many happy fans.

Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous South American jungle.

As others have noticed, this film suffers from having a strange title. The original book is "The Wages of Fear", and the film was released under this title in some territories. I suspect that if it had this title today, it might be better remembered. A name like "Sorcerer" clearly suggests a fantasy film, which this is not.

That major hurdle aside, it is a good movie and a very ambitious one. With four different prologues, a casual viewer might gt lost or bored or just not know what to think. It pays off as the story progresses, however, and we get a film that is a war movie, a mob movie, an action thriller... it has a little something for everyone.

This film is a worthy successor to "The Exorcist". In an alternate universe, this gritty thriller would have topped the box office and brought crowds to the theatres in 1977. But the studio didn't market it. No one saw it. The movie everyone saw instead that years was "Star Wars". That movie cost $11 million dollars to make. "Sorcerer" cost $12 million dollars to make. I sincerely regret not knowing about the film and trying to see it on the big screen. My first exposure to this film was when it debuted on a cable movie channel in the 1990s. At first, I was convinced that I had screwed up searching the TV listings, because the beginning of this film includes a sequence shot in France, starring French actors, and spoken entirely in French. This didn't fit in the synopsis of the movie I read: 4 desperate men are hired to move explosives through the jungle.

Based on a classic foreign film "Wages of Fear", which I was able to see in a revival theatre, there is a story setup that pushes the tension and almost dares you the audience to live through the experience. The movie begins immediately with a murder, without any setup or dialogue. The movie abruptly cuts to another country and three new characters who commit a terrorist attack. I mention one word as the title of this review, and that is "Riveting". William Friedkin, with a background in documentary filmmaking, directs this sequence with an immediacy that feels real. He achieved this with great success in "The French Connection". Using hand-held style of cinematography, Friedkin popularized this style that has seen a resurgence in recent years (Bourne films).

The French sequence I mentioned has a completely different timbre, as if we switched the channel to another movie with another director. Credit Friedkin for creating a provocative opening sequence that can challenge an audience, and which they find their reward for following the unorthodox setup of the story. I am reminded of the opening sequence of "The Exorcist", which approaches the story with seemingly detached characters, and allows the audience to be intelligent enough to fit the pieces together later.

The fourth sequence returns to New York, and almost feels like an deleted scene from "The French Connection", complete with car chase. Here, we also recognise Roy Scheider, the costar of "The French Connection". Except he is now on the opposite side of the law. Nevertheless, Scheider now is the central character of the film, and it his charisma that is necessary to carry the film through the rough ride ahead. Scheider always has been a good guy character and well liked by audiences. He carries "Jaws" very well. His tough guy role in "Marathon Man" also was memorable. Friedkin makes a deliberate decision to minimise the dialogue in this film, instead letting the action tell the story for us.

With the first act setting up the four main characters, the last being Roy Scheider, now on the run from the mob, we the audience are given the setup as Scheider is told his fate. He is getting on a boat to (presumably) Latin America or South America. An unnamed village in a third world country, through a montage of shots of fantastic cinematography, reveals that it is a corrupt government with a militant leader, and a poor population working for a western oil company. Again, all this exposition is told without a spoken word. There is also a deft approach to the story setting up the oil field explosion. Special care by the filmmakers makes sure each character in the films feels pressure. From the oil field foreman who must keep the quota, to the local police that must manage rioting workers, to the very survival of our four main characters who have bounties on their heads.

The four men are hired to move very volatile explosives to the oil field (the explosives are used to snuff out the flame). Again, the setup of the macguffin, the explosives, is done expertly and causes the audience to twitch, knowing that the slightest slip could cause the nitroglycerin to blow up. As I mentioned, it is at this point that Friedkin dares the audience to live through the experience, as the explosives are driven along a crumbling mountain road that also encounters rivers and jungles. Watching these trucks navigate almost impossible driving conditions is nerve wrecking. Just when you think the truck has negotiated a formidable obstacle, a group of banditos or something else gets in the way.

Watching this film for the first time in a few years (I deliberately held off until I could watch the Blu Ray copy), I was thoroughly entertained at this masterfully constructed thriller. This films should be considered a classic, by way of how expertly the story was told through new but yet entertaining and effective methods. Your heart pounds almost through your chest at times. I was even entertained when we learn the fate of Scheider at the end of the film. A film that successfully maintains tension from almost the very beginning should end the story with something to twist the knot even tighter.

I give this film an 8, a kind of film achievement that can't be duplicated (even though plans have been made for another remake).

For my money, the original one-sheet for "Sorcerer" is one of the most effective pieces of movie advertising. A cargo truck trying to negotiate its way across a sorely decrepit bridge. Simple, but highly effective. The whole movie is distilled into that one image. Which isn't to say that that's all the movie is, far from it. "Sorcerer" deals in high suspense like a seasoned pro, cavalierly dismissing the laws of physics in favor of truly nail-biting cinema. The whole thing feels doomed, and that sense of dread just builds, baby. It's a movie that spends its first half in set-up, but surprisingly is never boring. And Friedkin milks the gritty atmosphere out of that third-world jungle.

It's been a few days and I still can't get this movie out of my head. It doesn't shake off easily.

8/10

An underrated film with a typically stellar Roy Scheider performance, an eerie Tangerine Dream soundtrack, and brilliant visuals. This film's reputation suffers from its inexplicable title and unfavorable comparisons to the original. But it's useless to compare since this film is an altogether different beast. Friedkin gives it his usual nihilist/fatalist/existential stamp, making it a much darker film than the French version. Very suspenseful and well-made. Made by Friedkin at the height of his powers. His third best film after Exorcist and French Connection.