{"id":1976,"date":"2024-08-05T14:28:20","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T14:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1976"},"modified":"2024-10-14T13:48:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:48:51","slug":"sorcerer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/05\/sorcerer\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorcerer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sorcerer <\/strong>(1977)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal-Paramount\/Drama-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 121 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language, brief nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: William Friedkin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Walon Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tangerine Dream\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dick Bush and John M. Stephens\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Release date: June 24, 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou, Ramon Bieri, Peter Capell, Karl John, Fredrick Ledebur, Chico Martinez, Joe Spinell, Rosario Almontes, Richard Holley, Anne Marie Deschodt, Jean-Luc Bideau, Jacques Francois, Randy Jurgensen, Cosmo Allegretti.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $5.9M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Many factors likely contributed to the failure of William Friedkin\u2019s Sorcerer<\/strong>, a loose remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot\u2019s 1953 French-language thriller The Wages of Fear. First, audiences assumed with a title like Sorcerer<\/strong>, it had to be a supernatural horror movie similar to the director\u2019s previous film The Exorcist. They were understandably confused upon discovering it wasn\u2019t anything close to that. The title comes from a statement made by Friedkin about fate, the movie\u2019s underlying theme, being \u201can evil wizard\u201d. Second, American audiences were largely unaware of the source material. Friedkin tried to get The Wages of Fear rereleased in the US before his movie came out, but couldn\u2019t generate any interest among the major studios. Third, it had the misfortune of opening in a summer that also saw the failure of costly can\u2019t-miss movies like Exorcist II: The Heretic, A Bridge Too Far and New York, New York. The cause, a little sci-fi movie called Star Wars. Maybe you\u2019ve heard of it?<\/p>\n

\u00a0True to its name, Sorcerer<\/strong> came and went in a flash. Those that saw it either didn\u2019t get it or didn\u2019t like its pessimistic worldview. Whatever the case may be, it lingered in limbo for over a decade due to issues regarding ownership of the film. In order to cover the mounting production expenses, it was released jointly by two major studios, Universal and Paramount. It didn\u2019t become available on video until late \u201990. \u00a0That\u2019s when I finally got to see it. I had mixed feelings about it at the time. Now that I\u2019ve seen it a few times and understand what Friedkin is going for, I concur with its reassessment as an \u201coverlooked masterpiece\u201d. I\u2019d even say it\u2019s brilliant.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sorcerer<\/strong> kicks off with a cool prologue consisting of four vignettes depicting what brought the four main characters- a Mexican hitman (Rabal, Beyond Erotica), a Palestinian terrorist (Amidou, Victory), a crooked French businessman (Cremer, Is Paris Burning?) and an American gangster (Scheider, Jaws)- to the poor remote Latin American village of Porvenir. They\u2019ve all done terrible things that force them into exile to a damnable place that quite literally lies on the outskirts of Hell, especially after a nearby oil refinery catches on fire. The only way to put it out is to use dynamite. The closest supply of dynamite is over 200 miles away. Due to improper storage, it\u2019s leaking nitroglycerin making it highly unstable. The oil company needs four men to drive two poorly maintained trucks containing the extremely volatile dynamite through the jungle. It\u2019s a dangerous job as the slightest bump or jostle could cause it to explode.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Obviously, the four men hired for the well-paying job are the ones seen in the prologue. The hero of this story, if you can call him that, is Scheider\u2019s character Scanlon (aka \u201cJuan Dominguez\u201d). He\u2019s part of a crew that robs a New Jersey church with ties to the Mafia. During their getaway, he loses control of the car and crashes it killing all of his accomplices. He flees the country after learning there\u2019s a hit out on him. This is how he ends up in Porvenir with the others. Like them, he sees the job as his ticket out of there. It\u2019s also a shot at personal redemption for their sins. That is, if they survive the treacherous trek over miles and miles of rough, rugged terrain that also includes a rotting wooden bridge over a raging river. It doesn\u2019t help that the men don\u2019t trust each other.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Sorcerer <\/strong>is a tense, macho, gritty, sweaty, dirty, cynical adventure movie much like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Scheider playing the Humphrey Bogart character, an American down on his luck. A hero only in the broadest sense of the term, he embarks on a journey that takes him to Hell and back. As he draws closer to his destination, the job becomes more of an obsession as his sanity begins to deteriorate. Scheider keeps his character grounded, successfully resisting the temptation to play it to the hilt. He\u2019s truly an amazing actor. Sorcerer<\/strong> is one of his best unsung performances. It proves definitively that he\u2019s deserving of leading man status in movies that don\u2019t involve killer sharks. Cremer is also quite good as the voice of reason among the foursome. His business skills enable him to successfully negotiate higher pay for the drivers. He\u2019s also the sole voice of humanity with how he misses the wife he had to leave behind in Paris.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One of my favorite aspects of Sorcerer<\/strong> is Tangerine Dream\u2019s electronic score. It was ahead of its time. It gives the movie an extra jolt of energy. I LOVE it! I also love the authenticity provided by the natural South American locations, particular the scenes in the jungle. It was a difficult shoot and Friedkin never makes it look effortless. You get a real sense of worry and strain from the actors.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not one to bow to Hollywood convention, Friedkin doesn\u2019t end his treacherous tale on a happy note. On the contrary, Sorcerer<\/strong> has one of the most cynical endings I\u2019ve ever seen. No matter what, man cannot escape his own fate. Yeah, I can see why audiences didn\u2019t flock to this one. Nobody likes downbeat, especially during the hot months. Me, I dig truth in the art of cinema. I like it when a filmmaker takes his protagonist (and by proxy, the viewer) to the brink of madness much like Coppola did with Apocalypse Now. Sorcerer<\/strong> is an exceptional, criminally underappreciated film that deserves to be seen. It truly is remarkable.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorcerer (1977)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal-Paramount\/Drama-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 121 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (violence, language, brief nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: William Friedkin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Walon Green\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tangerine Dream\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Dick Bush and John M. Stephens\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Release date: June 24, 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou, Ramon Bieri, Peter Capell, Karl John, Fredrick Ledebur, Chico Martinez, Joe Spinell, Rosario […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hidden-treasures","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Sorcerer-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1976"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2770,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions\/2770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}