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#201 - Cape Fear
Martin Scorsese, 1991
After a convicted rapist gets out of prison after a lengthy jail term, he starts stalking the family of the attorney who originally defended him.
Martin Scorsese's version of Cape Fear is a solid enough if not necessarily amazing attempt at remaking a thriller. Though I haven't seen the original film (but have most definitely seem the episode of The Simpsons that parodied this film), on its own terms the Scorsese version works just fine. Though it doesn't feel like a Scorsese film so much as a fairly typical thriller for the period, it's not without its strengths. Robert de Niro makes for a solid antagonist as the creepy yet charming Max Cady - hearing him try to pull off a Southern accent may not always work, but otherwise he proves convincingly menacing every time he appears. The family at the centre of the narrative are also well-acted - Nick Nolte is sort of a weak link but he does just fine as a sufficiently complicated anti-hero who is almost flawed enough to deserve his retribution. His wife and daughter (Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis respectively) also get more to work with than merely playing the victim - Lewis's interactions with de Niro make for the most unsettling scenes in the film.
Granted, the film isn't a particularly deep one. The film amounts to little more than a fairly grey take on a morality play as Nolte's character and his family are made to pay as a result of him compromising his own morals simply to guarantee a conviction for a client he finds repugnant, but the film fills out its running time reasonably well. The casting is good (even the stunt-casting that brings back Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck on very different sides of the moral spectrum to their work in the original), the film builds a sufficient sense of dread thanks to its relentless antagonist powering on throughout all manner of suffering that almost makes him into a slasher villain, the film's stormy climax is very well-executed, and even though the score is recycled it's still great and never loses its power. Definitely not the best Scorsese, but still pretty good.
Martin Scorsese, 1991
After a convicted rapist gets out of prison after a lengthy jail term, he starts stalking the family of the attorney who originally defended him.
Martin Scorsese's version of Cape Fear is a solid enough if not necessarily amazing attempt at remaking a thriller. Though I haven't seen the original film (but have most definitely seem the episode of The Simpsons that parodied this film), on its own terms the Scorsese version works just fine. Though it doesn't feel like a Scorsese film so much as a fairly typical thriller for the period, it's not without its strengths. Robert de Niro makes for a solid antagonist as the creepy yet charming Max Cady - hearing him try to pull off a Southern accent may not always work, but otherwise he proves convincingly menacing every time he appears. The family at the centre of the narrative are also well-acted - Nick Nolte is sort of a weak link but he does just fine as a sufficiently complicated anti-hero who is almost flawed enough to deserve his retribution. His wife and daughter (Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis respectively) also get more to work with than merely playing the victim - Lewis's interactions with de Niro make for the most unsettling scenes in the film.
Granted, the film isn't a particularly deep one. The film amounts to little more than a fairly grey take on a morality play as Nolte's character and his family are made to pay as a result of him compromising his own morals simply to guarantee a conviction for a client he finds repugnant, but the film fills out its running time reasonably well. The casting is good (even the stunt-casting that brings back Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck on very different sides of the moral spectrum to their work in the original), the film builds a sufficient sense of dread thanks to its relentless antagonist powering on throughout all manner of suffering that almost makes him into a slasher villain, the film's stormy climax is very well-executed, and even though the score is recycled it's still great and never loses its power. Definitely not the best Scorsese, but still pretty good.