Le salaire de la peur

This is another example of a minimum-effort remake by people who think they are being creative by changing elements from the source material so they can pat themselves on the back for their "creativity" rather than to better fit a carefully crafted retelling.

The original by Clouzot and remake by Friedkin are brilliant and should have been enough to inform the makers of this train wreck that they were out of their depth. Instead they forged ahead and proved they don't understand the story and characters or why the setting was just as important.

Instead of the Colombian jungle with dangers around every corner including cliff-side roads, fallen trees, rivers with sketchy bridges, wildlife, etc, they chose to set this in the middle of the boring desert with long stretches of flat, easily-traversed roads and nothing of interest to even look at.

The original opens with a hyper-patient study of the characters who will eventually take up the challenge, while Sorceror uses pre-Colombia vignettes to introduce the characters and their reasons for ending up together.

This one opens with a pounding score that can't save one of the most boring "action" sequences I've ever seen. It's shot like a Honda Civic commercial, but then becomes more laughable when one of the vehicles gets stuck on a small hump because the driver (and director) apparently don't realize they are in a 4WD truck (or understand how motor vehicles in general work). The other vehicle pulls up and they chat about needing to go, but driver 1 is adamant about not leaving behind the (pointless MacGuffin). The other driver takes off, but SURPRISE(?), circles around to push the other truck over the speed bump. So exciting...Not. Meanwhile, somehow the vehicle that was in hot pursuit is conveniently much farther back than was previously shown.

We get a boring shootout that is somehow resolved and then a sex scene that provides no character development and further demonstrates a complete unawareness by the writer and director of the setting in which they placed their "remake"

The film suffers from a scripted dialogue that often feels stilted and lacking in organic flow, the characters appear to be waiting for their cue, resulting in moments of robotic stillness before delivering their lines. While certain minor details, such as the accurate depiction of grenades, are commendable, they are overshadowed by the characters' lack of common sense. Without revealing specific plot points, it's obvious that characters often fail to recognize or respond appropriately to potential dangers. Even for being a production under the Netflix banner, the film disappoints across acting, plot development, and direction. Additionally, its departure from the original title sets a discordant tone from the outset.

It ok but I lost interest due to the poor acting. I didnt realize it was a remake of a remake. I like the Roy Schneider version named "Sorcerer", actually love it. However, this film was kind of cheesey. I mean, pistols against rifles & lmgs, come on. I was on my phone and was watching it in the background looking up for a laugh or two during some of the action scenes. Started out fast but jumped to a sex scene so the first two scenes have nothing to do with the movie. I guess if you didnt know the plot it might keep you interested. Wrote this before it ended now the credits are rolling. Take my advice and wathe "Sorcerer". Youll thank me later. I think thats a wrap.

At the end of my review for the original "The Wages of Fear" I suggested that a remake could be made as there were material enough to improve some of its small problems, and also as the American remake "Sorcerer" was also lacking on something as both differed a little from the novel by Georges Arnaud. I wasn't wrong in asking for a new version. But what I couldn't predict was this new take by Netflix would turn into such a weird and lackluster experience.

The risky adventures of a group of men while dealing with countless obstacles in order to perform a dangerous mission was turned into a punch-throwing/gun shooting action film instead of the two previous thrilling character studies on courage and cowardice. For the many updates made to bring this story to the 21st century and little homages to the classic 1953 film, it's no use of seeing it as what's been done before is a hundred times better, more effective and enjoyable than this near disaster of a movie.

But I gotta be honest: it offers some decent entertainment and it has potential to attract curious hearts who might like the many thrills faced by the characters. This time, we have two brothers (Franck Gastambide and Alban Lenoir) in the crew, rather than all complete strangers joining forces in order to save a village from the disastrous perils offered by an oil rig explosion. The duo goes against each other after a mistake from the past made one of them went to jail for a crime he didn't commit. Throw in the bunch the lover (Ana Girardot) of one of them, a ruthless commander (Sofiane Zermani) and his team, all driving through the desert carrying a huge cargo of dynamite, crossing an African nation in turmoil in the middle of a major political turnover. The way to their mission isn't just dangerous because of the terrible roads, but also the presence of armed rebels who kills whoever comes to their territory.

A handful of good moments doesn't satisfy as a whole, and Julien Leclercq's sense of direction isn't strong enough to make it a compelling work.

This "Wages of Fear" turned into a confusing action-driven flick with one dimensional characters, and the whole cruel greedy from them felt forced, simply used to form a "plot twist". Add to the mix the insane ammount of plot holes put on this, that it's not even funny. You may want to watch the film just to witness everything that goes wrong.

It wasn't a total waste of time (loved the land mine sequence but I've seen it done before), and I really think it could go worse - almost left after the first minutes as it felt like a sequel of some movie I haven't seen before due to the terrible presentation of the lead characters. It'll find some audience, but my advice remains the same: watch Clouzot's film and/or Friedkin's remake as they are near perfect in matters of cinema and positively better on all accounts if compared to this unwanted new take. 5/10.

When I first started watching the movie with the English dubbed version, I didn't enjoy it because the voices and sound effects seemed slow and unimpressive. I then tried watching it with the original soundtrack, but it didn't get any better. The action scenes, which should have been thrilling, were just not exciting at all, mostly because they were too focused on showing violence without a good pace. The sound editing was also not great, making the movie feel dull and uninteresting. It seemed like the filmmakers were more interested in filming some nice scenes in the rocky terrain than in developing a gripping story. I couldn't feel any empathy for the main characters when they were in danger or got hurt because the movie didn't make me care about them. In the end, it was really boring and not worth watching.