Sorcerer
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Movie Reviews of Sorcerer
Movie Review: An old favorite
Summary: 5 Stars
When I was a teenager I first saw the trailer for this movie before a screening of John Frankenhiemer's Black Sunday and thought is was so cool I went back to see Black Sunday again just to see the tremendous Sorcerer trailer (which is included on the DVD). When Sorcerer did come out I saw it three or four times and went to see it at every retrospective I could find. (In the days before video, kids.) I, for one, know that Sorcerer should be letterboxed and I look forward to that version. For a long time the Paramount/Universal dual production held Sorcerer from going anywhere. What makes me come back to watch Sorcerer over and over is the excellent intensity of the piece (especially the second hour), Freidkin's riveting direction, Owen Roizman's superb cinematography (greens, blues, tans), and Roy Scheider; always good in my book. (Except 52 Pickup, steer clear.) The international cast is excellent as well, especially Bruno Cremer.
Too bad they don't make 'em like this anymore. Great soundtrack from TD, too. Most suspenseful scene in any movie I can think of (at the bridge). Just as good everytime you watch it. Buy it, but hope it comes out in the original letterbox.
Grown-up and riveting!
Movie Review: This is a great lad flick
Summary: 5 Stars
"Sorcerer" is a 1977 adaptation of the French 1952 classic "The Wages of Fear" which curiously neither improves upon the original, nor denigrates it.
The "sorcerer" of this film is fate, which gathers four outcast men of four different countries together. These have nothing in common but are obligated to collaborate for the same reasons, money and redemption of honour and place in their low-rent society. Their impossible task: take unstable nitro glycerine over the jungle in shabby trucks (not comfy Defender 90s and Land Cruisers) with busted shocks and fractured springs.
This version is very faithful to the novel, which clearly presented a challenge for filming and likely busted the budget. Roy Scheider is excellent, coming off his work in "Marathon Man" and "Jaws."
This is a guys and beer movie: pessimistic, ironic, wor-out tools, tired souls, Sisyphean, and an unhappy ending.
The weird score by Tangerine Dream's score actually works and the colors and soft focus used throughout create a hallucinogenic dream-like state that speaks of the sweat and exhaustion the characters go through.
Movie Review: Underrated Sorcery From William Friedkin
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this film in the theater and was blown away. It was pulse-pounding, sweaty, hot, real, and disturbing. Roy Scheider's portrayal of a man with nothing and everything left to lose rang true. The French second lead and the other actors became real men caught in a black hole of fate and error and karma and circumstance. I am a combat veteran of the War in Vietnam and I have a personal register I trust deeply when it comes to depictions of men under mortal stress. This movie worked on every level.
The violence was abrupt and appalling; the indifference of desperate men to the fate of others was accurate and frightening.
I rented the original on VHS and felt at the time and still feel that Friedkin's film is a masterwork of its kind. I have seen each film twice. Sorcerer is the jewel. The original seems ham-handed and sentimental by comparison.
Terror is not an existential experience; it is personal and intimate and painful and surreal.
Sorcerer teaches us to be mindful; a single error of judgement or choice by any one of us can lead us into a deep inexorable hell.
Movie Review: Noir suspense film that is eery and cool
Summary: 5 Stars
Never saw "Wages of Fear" but "Sorcerer" is definitely a weird creepy movie due to the score from Tangerine Dream. Notable credit must be given to Keith Barret who supplied some nice mood music during a great panaglide helicopter shot overlooking the oil fire in the movie. Great jungle locations...something about jungle movies creep me out
(Romancing the Stone comes to mind). Excellent scenes of suspense involving the trucks transporting nitroglycerine through the rugged jungle country. Steve McQueen was considered first for the role that Roy Scheider would eventually play. Mcqueen would have been fine for the role and it would have definitely been a different movie although maybe not for the better. Roy Scheider brings an element of believeability and succeeds on all levels...Im glad he was cast and not McQueen. Anyway, pure suspense, creepy music, weird locations and the great idea of putting 4 strangers in a dangerous situation make "Sorcerer" a winner in my book.
Movie Review: A masterpiece, pure and simple
Summary: 5 Stars
Clouzot's "Wages of Fear" is a fine piece of French existentialism - well worth seeing. But Friedkin's "Sorcerer" is a much greater film in every respect. The "backstory" segments, where we get to see how each of the men ends up in his desperate situation, are absolutely astonishing - the grittiest and most convincing examples of "documentary" realism in fictional film-making that I've ever seen. No joke: these scenes make Sidney Lumet seem like Baz Luhrman. The truck journey is simply punishing - probably the most intense cinematic suspense ever filmed. And the ending is unforgettable - a shattering experience.I'm not sure why this film and Friedkin's other overlooked gem, "To Live and Die in L.A.", have yet to receive the acclaim they deserve. (That Friedkin is, by his own admission, a prize jerk may have something to do with it.) But you owe it to yourself to see this movie. It's one of the great ones.