To me, this movie is perfection.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Many times, I stumble across a movie that tells a great story in such a way, that I'm constantly thinking about it after I've seen it for the first time. Sunset Blvd and Chinatown, among many others come to mind. This is such a movie. It's hard to overstate how good this film truly is. One of the top directors of the new Hollywood 70's William Friedkin, and one of the best scripts you'll ever see put to screen and it makes for a damn fine show. Four men, escaping to South America, after commuting various heinous crimes, find themselves in a place worse than jail, a poverty stricken hellhole where life is cheap, and the options are few. With no chance of really getting out, the men are resigned to their fates, until an opportunity comes calling: Transport highly volatile dynamite 200 miles across jungle terrain in order to put out an oil well fire. Four men of different backgrounds, an American on the run from the mob, a Frenchman who dropped everything after being caught embezzling money from his company, a Palestinian terrorist, and a Mexican hitman. They seemingly have nothing to offer each other until they come face to face with fear, death, and their own fates. An adventure tale that has no lighthearted moments, and an ending that is one of the most twisting you'll see, you'll see why Friedkin talks about the Sorceror of the films title being a metaphor for the fates that control all of our lives. Thrilling, dire, heart stopping, this is a film for the ages! Highly recommended!!m

Critics can get a hard rap, but prime British film critic Mark Kermode has been recently championing this mostly forgotten film for its anniversary. Granted it has the benefit of being by the director of his favourite film (The Exorcist), but still it piqued my interest, and I'm glad it did.What we have is a very harsh film, where the characters and story lack empathy, as we watch the central group of men go through their Heart of Darkness moments. We have an American mob man, a Middle Eastern bomber and a French banking fraudster (no this is not the start of a joke) who are thrown together after their world collapse and they have to escape their looming punishments.Forced by circumstance to win a job that will see them have to cross the Central American jungle in clapped out trucks with highly volatile explosives in the back, they are on a journey to nowhere to win the purse and passports needed to survive.I don't want to spoil anything at all here, as there are some great suspenseful scenes here which will have your heart in your mouth. It's got the full direction and style that those who loved The Exorcist will understand, and again sound is a major part of the movie and the clincher. Wonderful soundtrack and sound effects, and on a big screen it all comes together.I can't think of how they could have got better than our leads in the film, with Roy Schneider being the most recognisable, who finds this job from hell one he has to finish but at what cost? The only question is how was this gem forgotten for so long? Wonderful tough viewing, but really original and something that is a great 70s contemporary snapshot of great filming of the era, a true golden age of cinema movies.Crank up your motors and go traipse through whatever growth you have to get to watch this, recommended viewing.

Being a big fan of Henri-George Cluzot's extraordinary Film Noir The Wages of Fear,a friend gave me the US remake on my birthday. Whilst keen the see the remake,I found myself just going back to the original when I would get a chance to. Taking part in an ICM film exchange project,I was happily caught by surprise,when the title was chosen for viewing,which led to me finally casting a spell.The plot:Caught partaking in various crimes, Nilo, Kassem, Victor, and Jackie each live/hide in a town that has been destroyed by poverty.Wanting to get their hands on any serious cash,they each accept an offer from a company to each take stacks of dynamite to the other side of town in order to close an oil well. Setting off,the drivers soon begin to fear that a fuse has been lit on their lives.View on the film:Backed by Paramount and Universal,the DVD transfer from Universal is shockingly poor,with the print looking like it has been used as a brush,and the original mono soundtrack having a slightly muted quality.Driving deep into the jungle,director William Friedkin & cinematographers Dick Bush and John M. Stephens shred the Film Noir anxiety of the original,to light an Action flick fuse. Building the bridge for real, (with added,hidden safety features!) Friedkin drips the tension of the drivers across the screen with elegant wide shots swaying to the surrounding jungle and picking up every wrong turn that takes place. Turning the wheels with a rapid-fire opening giving each of the drivers an intro,Friedkin blends ultra-stylised overlapping close-ups with Tangerine Dream's great, spidery score to give the jungle a peculiar,other worldly atmosphere. Going down a different road to the original,the screenplay by Walon Green delves into the background of the drivers with a frantic crime edge opening,that reveals the deal that has led to the drivers deciding to put their hands on dynamite. After setting everyone up,Green is disappointingly unable to bridge the action with the personal,as a lack of building any type of bond between Nilo and Jackie Scanlon (played by a very good,tough Roy Scheider and a playful Francisco Rabal) leading the action to look enticing,but lacking a much needed psychological depth to make this sorcerer cast a magical spell.

This film is a worthy successor to "The Exorcist". In an alternate universe, this gritty thriller would have topped the box office and brought crowds to the theatres in 1977. But the studio didn't market it. No one saw it. The movie everyone saw instead that years was "Star Wars". That movie cost $11 million dollars to make. "Sorcerer" cost $12 million dollars to make. I sincerely regret not knowing about the film and trying to see it on the big screen. My first exposure to this film was when it debuted on a cable movie channel in the 1990s. At first, I was convinced that I had screwed up searching the TV listings, because the beginning of this film includes a sequence shot in France, starring French actors, and spoken entirely in French. This didn't fit in the synopsis of the movie I read: 4 desperate men are hired to move explosives through the jungle. Based on a classic foreign film "Wages of Fear", which I was able to see in a revival theatre, there is a story setup that pushes the tension and almost dares you the audience to live through the experience. The movie begins immediately with a murder, without any setup or dialogue. The movie abruptly cuts to another country and three new characters who commit a terrorist attack. I mention one word as the title of this review, and that is "Riveting". William Friedkin, with a background in documentary filmmaking, directs this sequence with an immediacy that feels real. He achieved this with great success in "The French Connection". Using hand-held style of cinematography, Friedkin popularized this style that has seen a resurgence in recent years (Bourne films). The French sequence I mentioned has a completely different timbre, as if we switched the channel to another movie with another director. Credit Friedkin for creating a provocative opening sequence that can challenge an audience, and which they find their reward for following the unorthodox setup of the story. I am reminded of the opening sequence of "The Exorcist", which approaches the story with seemingly detached characters, and allows the audience to be intelligent enough to fit the pieces together later. The fourth sequence returns to New York, and almost feels like an deleted scene from "The French Connection", complete with car chase. Here, we also recognise Roy Scheider, the costar of "The French Connection". Except he is now on the opposite side of the law. Nevertheless, Scheider now is the central character of the film, and it his charisma that is necessary to carry the film through the rough ride ahead. Scheider always has been a good guy character and well liked by audiences. He carries "Jaws" very well. His tough guy role in "Marathon Man" also was memorable. Friedkin makes a deliberate decision to minimise the dialogue in this film, instead letting the action tell the story for us. With the first act setting up the four main characters, the last being Roy Scheider, now on the run from the mob, we the audience are given the setup as Scheider is told his fate. He is getting on a boat to (presumably) Latin America or South America. An unnamed village in a third world country, through a montage of shots of fantastic cinematography, reveals that it is a corrupt government with a militant leader, and a poor population working for a western oil company. Again, all this exposition is told without a spoken word. There is also a deft approach to the story setting up the oil field explosion. Special care by the filmmakers makes sure each character in the films feels pressure. From the oil field foreman who must keep the quota, to the local police that must manage rioting workers, to the very survival of our four main characters who have bounties on their heads. The four men are hired to move very volatile explosives to the oil field (the explosives are used to snuff out the flame). Again, the setup of the macguffin, the explosives, is done expertly and causes the audience to twitch, knowing that the slightest slip could cause the nitroglycerin to blow up. As I mentioned, it is at this point that Friedkin dares the audience to live through the experience, as the explosives are driven along a crumbling mountain road that also encounters rivers and jungles. Watching these trucks navigate almost impossible driving conditions is nerve wrecking. Just when you think the truck has negotiated a formidable obstacle, a group of banditos or something else gets in the way. Watching this film for the first time in a few years (I deliberately held off until I could watch the Blu Ray copy), I was thoroughly entertained at this masterfully constructed thriller. This films should be considered a classic, by way of how expertly the story was told through new but yet entertaining and effective methods. Your heart pounds almost through your chest at times. I was even entertained when we learn the fate of Scheider at the end of the film. A film that successfully maintains tension from almost the very beginning should end the story with something to twist the knot even tighter. I give this film an 8, a kind of film achievement that can't be duplicated (even though plans have been made for another remake).