Sorcerer, directed by William Friedkin, is an adaptation of the book and film both named The Wages of Fear. As the commentary video mentions, this film is a sort of "free adaptation" of the film Wages of Fear. In some ways we get a remake of the first film but in other ways we get an all new take on the story and genre. I won't be focusing to much on the similarities and differences between the two films in this blog, that will be one of the focuses of the next feature post. Instead I believe that this film should be seen as an independent film that uses only some parts of the original. With that being said, lets take a look at the opening of this film, which is very different from Wages of Fear. The beginning of the film sets up a small introduction for each of the four main characters, which was not seen in The Wages of Fear. This introduction is broken into four different scenes and locations. The first taking place in Veracruz, Mexico as "An elegantly dressed man, Nilo, enters an apartment and executes its tenant quietly, with a silenced gun, after which he walks out onto the square." Nilo (Francisco Rabal) is a professional assassin that has a lot of mystery about him. The second scene takes place in Jerusalem, Isreal where Arab terrorists, that are disguised as Jews, blow up a building. When they get back to the safe house, the military comes and kills two of them and captures one. The only one to escape is Kassem (Amidou). Moving on to the third scene which takes place in Paris, France. Here we meet Victor Manzon - 'Serrano' (Bruno Cremer), who is an investment banker and has his firm accused of "false representation of collateral." After he is given 24 hours to make amends, he tries persuading his partner, Pascal, to call his father and ask for help. This eventually leads to Pascal committing suicide, as you can see in the picture above. The last opening scene is in New Jersey, USA and this is where we meet the main character of film, Jackie Scanlon (Roy Scheider). Scanlon and the rest of his Irish group robs a church and shoot a priest. As Jackie, who is the driver, gets into an argument with the gang in the car, he crashes into a truck. After Jackie escapes, we learn that the priest that was shot was the brother of a powerful criminal, Carlo Ricci. All these scenes eventually lead the four men to escape to a little town in South America named Porvenir. Now that we have the opening scenes out of the way, lets take a look into the suspense/thriller genre this film portrays so well. So after the opening scenes, we see the explosion of the oil site and the huge fire. This leads to the oil company hiring four drivers to carry nitroglycerin across the South American jungle. Now this part of the film was one of the most exciting parts of the film, as we get to see the drivers building and fixing up their trucks for the 218 mile trip. Down below is a video of the trucks being repaired. I found this scene interesting because of the great background music and the set up to an adventure the audience won't forget. After the trucks are prepared, the drivers set out with Nilo joining them after he kills the former fourth driver. From this point on the suspense is so well done, and in my opinion beats out The Wages of Fear easily. What made this film even more suspenseful was the fact that "The whole picture would be CGI. ... The production of that film was life-threatening" This is seen many times throughout the film. The first scene with the second truck crossing a wooden crossing and almost collapsing the whole thing. Then almost right after that was finished, we got the bridge scene over the river. Now I don't usually get suspenseful during a film, but I got to say that the bridge scene had me tensed. As you can see in the video down below, the bridge is swaying left and right and at any moment it could break. What makes it worse is that this was done without CGI. Also, as the commentary mentioned, the lack of sound, except for the rain, brings out more suspense from the scene. If that wasn't enough, the next obstacle both trucks face is the tree. In this scene, a big tree is covering the road and the only way to get rid of it is to use the nitroglycerin. In this scene we see the fear of the four men. When they have the opportunity to leave, they do it by running as fast as they can. After the tree is blown up, remember that it was done without CGI, the men carry on. Here we reach the finale. While Serrano and Kassem are driving in their truck, they blow a tire and eventually fall off the cliff and explode. This is ironic considering that a simple blown tire kills the two men, and not the other insane obstacles that they dealt with prior to this scene. When Jackie and Nilo arrive, they are greeted with a group of bandits that plan on stealing the truck and taking their supplies. This leads to Nilo shooting the three men in front but in return being shot himself. Jackie quickly kills the one in the back and helps Nilo into the truck. From here we start to see Jackie losing his mind. As they are driving, Nilo dies and Jackie has flash backs. Here we see a slimier scenario to Jackie's opening scene, in which he is the only one to survive. After his truck breaks down, we see him walk the rest of the 1.3 miles to the oil field. There he collapses and we are transported back to the bar in Porvenir. Jackie is payed and given citizenship and before he leaves he decides to have a dance. While he is dancing, the camera cuts to a taxi arriving and from it come out the criminals that are hunting Jackie. Even though we don't see what happens, we can all assume that he is shot and killed as well. One last part of film that I want to focus on is the theme of sanity and how the characters become terrified the further they go. Throughout the 218 mile trip, we see all four men losing their calmness and some even going insane. The first scene being with Kassem, who starts driving across the wooden passage way and once the truck's tire gets stuck, we see his face change. He gets scared and thinks its all over. When the truck doesn't explode, Serrano tells him to continue and Kassem yells back no. Another scene is with the wooden bridge and Nilo. Nilo sees the bridge and starts running away from Jackie, who wants to cross. The next big scene is more of an irony than anything and that's the death of Kassem and Serrano. Throughout the trip, both characters face dangers that could have killed them and they are constantly sweating and scared. Then after they let their guards down and start talking about their lives, the truck's tire pops and they die. This irony that something so simple, and not expected is what killed them, is what makes this film great. Obviously the last scene where Nilo dies and Jackie goes crazy is the best example of him losing his sanity and never being the same again. Overall, this film was great and had a lot of good moments that the audience won't forget for a long time. So then, why is it that it didn't do as well as it should of? Well its because "Sorcerer did come out right as Star Wars fever was gripping the nation, debuting a month after ..." The release of Star Wars is what eventually lead to the fall of this film and for some time it was lost in history. In the end, it was rediscovered and a new DVD version was released. Thanks to this, I was given an opportunity to watch one of the best suspense films to ever come out.
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