What is the worst movie title in film history? "Beavis and Butthead Do America" and "Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay!" are candidates, but "Sorcerer" is also a contender. Not because the title itself is awful, but because it implies a completely different film. "Sorcerer" has virtually nothing to do with the film, although we eventually learn that it is the name of one of the two trucks.
"Sorcerer" is a remake of the 1953 French film "Wages of Fear". I have not seen the original, so I can't compare the two versions. But it would have to be an excellent film to top the remake. "Sorcerer" is an extremely tense and dramatic film that should keep you on the edge of your seat.
The film begins with several loose ends: we meet a Palestinian terrorist (Anidou), a failed French banker (Bruno Cremer), a hit man (Francisco Rabal) and an American bank robber (Roy Scheider). It turns out that these four strangers have much in common: they are criminals with their lives in danger, and must flee somewhere where they cannot be found. They each end up in a rural slum in Nicaragua.
An act of sabotage at an oil refinery causes a massive fire, which can only be extinguished with dynamite. The only available dynamite is 200 miles. Volunteers are needed for the near-suicidal, but high-paying job of transferring the dynamite by truck to the fire. The four criminals, desperate for cash, volunteer for the job.
Since "Sorcerer" is an American film, Scheider has the biggest role. He hardly gets to smile the entire film, and spends most of it struggling to get the dynamite-laden truck across rickety bridges and nearly-impassable roads. Character development is marginal, and we don't see these men beyond desperate outlaws. Cremer is the exception, as we get glimpses of his married and business life before having to flee France, and in Nicaragua there are traces of a romance with a silent middle-aged laborer.
"Sorcerer" is directed by William Friedkin, whose two previous films, "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist", achieved much greater commercial success. But all three films favor action, cinematography and story over character development and dialogue, and since all three are good films, Friedkin may have been onto something. (74/100)
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