Sorcerer

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

I suppose it's not a shock to find out that the remake is not a good as the original, but I guess I kinda thought this was the right combination of director and material. If anyone could make a great movie out the premise of trucks full of nitroglycerin riding through bumpy jungle terrain, William Friedkin seemed like the guy.

The problem is that he takes too long getting to the premise. The first half of the movie involes a lot of complicated backstories that don't much effect the plot, and actually don't seem to develop the characters much. In fact, the opening half hour seems to be made up of little action set pieces with little to no context to make you care about what's happening. I suspect maybe it was an attempt to add more action into the early scenes, but it drags. They should have gotten to the trucking sooner.

Once the real story kicks in, the movie kicks off, and the 2nd half is pretty fantastic. In fact, there's an extended sequence on a rickety bridge that's better than anything in Wages of Fear. I have to say, it's been a few days since I watched this, and the second half of the movie really sticks with you. So this is definitely a worthwhile one.

I have to give Friedkin credit for keeping the nihilism of the original. It doesn't have the part where two guys die and you never find out how (well, they still die, but you do see how it happens), but it keeps a lot of the same road to nowhere feel, and has an ending just as dark. I didn't like the ending at first, I thought it felt like they threw in a poorly set-up twist for no reason, but the more I think about it, the more it fits this movie's sense of doom. In fact, although I still think the first half of the movie is a bore, it does make the movie seem even more nihilistic, since a lot of characters die before their backstories or subplots ever pay off.

That's Friedkin's style, though. A lot of his movies have a sense of weirdness and ambiguity, and even though he's made a few big hits, they never quite feel mainstream. There's the ending of The French Connection that leaves you hanging. The opening of The Exorcist that is strange but never quite seems to fit in. There's Cruising, a slasher/thriller that feels like it's missing a plot and any sense of resolution. And here we have an action thriller without any chance of a happy ending.