Premise: Four men are hired to transport unstable dynamite across the rain forest.
Perhaps it's because I haven't seen the 1953 film The Wages of Fear, but I thought Sorcerer was a pretty grand movie. Both films are adaptations of the novel La Salaire de la peur. When Sorcerer came out in 1977, it was looked at as an unneeded remake of the 1953 film. It went way overbudget and had a contentious production. The film was not well received, and most of the criticism now reads like people who were victim of the moment. Their issues seemed to be more about the troubled production and need for a remake than the quality of the final product. That happens a lot. The same could be said of many of my Movie Reactions.
Watching the movie now, I'm surprised it took me this long to hear about it. This is a classic of white-knuckle tension. Potential for an explosion lurks around every corner or bump in the road. As a viewer, I know there are multiple trucks, so I know something bad is going to happen to most of them. It's just a matter of when and how. And this sustained for over half the movie. Damn, that was an enjoyable and distressing bit of cinema.
It does take a little while to get to the good stuff. There are the prologue portions that introduce us to the characters then a sequence that sets up the oil fire they are trying to put out. Frankly, I didn't need any of that. Part of the fun for me was how little I know the characters. It was darkly funny when two of them actually started to talk about their families and immediately crashed and exploded. It's a 2-hour movie. I would've been fine with 90-minutes and a lot less character building. Once it gets to the transport of the dynamite, it's hard to find a single thing to complain about.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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