Greetings gentle readers, welcome to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today we present Sorcerer, a riveting tale of desperate men and dynamite.
Reviews:
DVD Talk says:
Though it is smarter, more daring, and more artfully crafted than most, it can’t be ignored that Sorcerer is, at its core, a hell of a thriller. The very premise of the movie — transporting highly volatile crates of nitroglycerin across more than two hundred miles of punishing jungle — ought to be an indication of how unnervingly and unrelentingly suspenseful it can be. Sorcerer is so intense that I couldn’t possibly stay perched on my couch, releasing some of my nervous energy by pacing around the room as I watched. The standout sequences of Sorcerer are set on a rope bridge that seem as if they could barely support a 150 lb. man slowly crossing its expanse, let alone trucks weighing many tons and carrying such dangerous cargo. The sight of one of the trucks swinging perilously on the bridge as it sways during a torrential storm may be the most gruelingly intense I’ve witnessed in any film from any era.
The Guardian says:
A fierce, austere and intriguing film: a cinematic concerto of pessimism.
Fletchtalks says:
There’s greatness throughout – the fiercely unsentimental approach makes for a gut-punching, at times shocking journey. There’s no Hollywood glamour at all – even the presence of Roy Scheider doesn’t make it feel like a blockbuster. He’s never looked so grimy, shabby or shaken up. The photography and location work is incredible – you feel like you’re right there in the dirt of the village, the heat of the fire, the density of the jungle. German electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream deliver a stand-out score – their first ever soundtrack, and far, far, far from their last – that really adds to the moodiness. The ending is appropriately downbeat – unimaginable any other way, frankly.
I love this movie. It doesn’t have a “message” as far as I can tell. It’s not trying to teach you something about human nature, at least not intentionally. It’s a grimy, no-holds barred tale of four bastards with nothing to lose who are trying to escape the shithole nowhere town they ran to to hide from their crimes. The story is sparse, a wire upon which to hang the raw cinematography and haunting music. Between the rotting jungles, alien terrains, torrential thunderstorms, and tree choked rivers it could be argued that Mother Nature is the real star of the show. The action scenes are brutal, ruthless. And the crossing of the bridge, well, for the life of me I still can’t figure out how the hell they shot that scene without losing half the film crew.
Director: William Friedkin
Notable Actors: Roy Scheider
Spoiler alert!
Synopsis:
A Mexican hit man looking to lay low after a job. A Palestinian resistance fighter fleeing the IDF. A French banker whose fraud has been revealed. And an Irish-American mobster who picked the wrong guys to rob.
What these four men have in common, besides being on the run, is that they have all ended up in a backwater town in Central America called Porvenir. The town relies on a despised American oil company for it’s economy, where all but the Mexican have found work for miserable pay. The four want to get the hell out of Porvenir but lack the funds to do so.
Then opportunity comes knocking. An oil fire has exploded at the nearby field and it’s going to take dynamite to put it out. The problem is that the nearest cache of dynamite is old and very unstable. Air lifting it is out of the question. Only a laborious trek by truck will be able to deliver the deadly cargo in relative safety.
The four men take on the job for a small fortune in pay. The journey is incredibly difficult, involving hideous weather, dank jungles, fallen trees, and banditry. The Frenchman and the Palestinian are killed when a tire blows out and their cargo is detonated. Bandits wound the Mexican and he eventually dies. Only the American is left and when his truck conks out he finishes the last few miles of the journey on foot, a single case of dynamite in his arms.
Now a wealthy man, the American has returned to the town of Porvenir. He has a passport to Colombia, money in his pocket, and the friendship of the oil company. But his success is short lived. As he dances with an elderly cleaning woman he has come to know, a car pulls up outside and a group of hit men get out. The American’s past has caught up with him.
Play this as a double feature with the original version, 1953s French film “The Wages of Fear” and you will get two versions of a timeless theme. Both are very good in their separate ways. I won’t call either one “better” than the other.
The real star of both of these films is “Fate.”
Pass the popcorn.
Haven’t seen this film but I saw an earlier version – “The Wages of Fear” – made back in 1953 and even though I have not seen it for decades, it was riveting-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wages_of_Fear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYDZ3vNa-MQ (1:39 mins)
Both were film adaptations of Georges Arnaud’s 1950 French novel “Le Salaire de la peur” which Yandex Translate tells me is ‘The wages of fear.’
Just saw ambrit recognizing this film too. Make that popcorn for two.
I saw this the same week it came out in a nearly-empty theatre in London, Ontario. I’d already seen Star Wars (and would again), but this punishing film impressed the hell out of me. It was a decade later before I found Sorcerer again, on the shelf at a video store. It held up well . . .
Talk about flashbacks! I saw this film … or maybe the original French version? …. decades ago. The rope bridge scenes are seared into my memory banks. Along with the dirt and sweat and the cases of dynamite. Ack!!
The original version had nitroglycerin instead of dynamite which was freaky to watch. Look at the stuff cross-eyed and boom!
It’s Nitroglycerine- a key component of dynamite- in this one too, which is leaking from the degraded stash.
Nothing much to add to what has already been said by Semper and others, apart from watch it, a stone cold classic.
Sorcerer! Oh man. When I was a kid I had the Tangerine Dream soundtrack album and treasured it. I think I still have that LP. Only saw the movie much later in the Netflix era (remember DVD delivery by USPS? so cool). I suddenly now think maybe it has something in common with Apocalypse Now, a kind of journey driven by relentless ambition into derangement.
Sorceror/Wages of Fear: Have seen both versions … well worth everyone’s time.
This movie’s other claim to fame is being obliterated at the box office by the original release of Star Wars.
Sorcerer was the first film with a soundtrack by the legendary surreal Krautrock trio Tangerine Dream. Friedkin saw them perform live in an abandoned church in the Black Forest and decided on the spot that they would do the score.
On a more personal note, saw this film long ago and it always stuck with me.
When Bush, Obama, and Trump each got elected a second time, the first thing that entered my mind was the scene in Sorcerer with 4 AÑOS MÁS spray-painted on a wall of the end-of-the-road sh*thole hideout village.
Nice reference there, Acacia. I found it in the move near the end around 1:51:50 and grabbed it for us here: https://i.imgur.com/UdlO47w.png
I’ll join in on The Wages of Fear. In that movie it is just one man and a truck full of nitroglycerin. I believe it was Wuk who pointed out that quicksand, a staple of action movies in my youth, is very rarely encountered in real life.
But nitro is a real thing and does leak out of old dynamite. I haven’t seen The Sorcerer.
Wow! You guys have good taste! Sorcerer is probably my favorite movie of all time! The soundtrack is great, too as Tangerine Dream is probably my favorite band of all time!
They used to show this movie a lot on cable television a lot during the very early 1990s when I was a kid.
Actually, I think Sorcerer does have a lesson to teach about human nature, in that people are bastards no matter the time and place on Earth as it is also a very cynical movie. I remember seeing the bride with a black eye getting married in the church that Scanlon and his gang are going to rob.
Sorcerer is unique in that it is a remake which is just as good as the original. I can’t think of any other example.
It was hugely expensive – two studios combined their budgets to make it – and it lost a ton of money. The title sounded like a reference to The Exorcist, Friedkin’s previous film. They retitled it Wages of Fear in Europe, but it was too late.
In his autobiography, Friedkin says he wishes he had cast Steve McQueen in the lead. But Scheider is superb.
Excellent film!
Hear, here.
Remakes of films almost always suck, but not that duo.
As J.J. used to say in Good Times
DY-NO-MITE!
The Sorcerer soundtrack was the first movie soundtrack I’ve ever purchased – it can be found on youtube these days for those who are interested. My favorite track: The Journey. Haunting.
On a related note, what a tear Roy Scheider went on in the 70’s: Klute & French Connection (1971), Jaws (1975), Marathon Man (1976), Sorcerer (1977) and All That Jazz (1979).
One of my favorites from this era is The Outside Man (1972). A crime thriller in which Scheider plays a hitman hired to bump off another hit man. A French production filmed in LA – the photography vividly captures 70’s LA. Recommended.