Summary
After a man is released from prison, he seeks revenge on his lawyer who let him get convicted…
My Thoughts
Cape Fear is one of those moves that if any other director other than a master like Martin Scorsese had made it, it would be ripped apart by both critics and audiences alike, but with the skill level he has behind the camera, and his hand picked cast and crew he is able to make a schlocky b genre movie into an entertaining and fun ride, albeit it is still one of (if not the most) the silliest films Scorsese and company have been a part of, Cape Fear still has plenty to offer in terms of storytelling and giving us an absolute manic Robert De Niro (Casino) as our main antagonist, who's character Max Cady was just released from prison after 14 years for a sex crime that his lawyer Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte, The Thin Red Line) threw out a crucial piece of information that could have shortened his sentence, and now a decade and a half later Max will stop at nothing to doll out his revenge on his lawyer who ultimately got him locked up for so long.
I couldn't tell you why Scorsese decided to direct this remake of the same title from the 50s, but I can say confidently that I'm glad he did. The prolific director hasn't always been the most accessible director, with entrees such as "The Last Temptation of Christ" or more recently "Silence" which challenges the audience on a moral level and requires the utmost attention to the craft. Where as Cape Fear is just a straight up thriller, a point A to point B thriller that one might see come from a new film school graduate on paper, but with Scorsese behind the helm this film transcends what could've been just a sick trashy stalker film and turns it into a near pitch black comedy, full of sick twists and gruesome violence, it's a director saying "I don't need to do challenging films to be good" and that's exactly how it feels, it's an easy film to follow narratively, but it still challenges the audience in a 'fight or flight' sort of way, using the title of the movie to its fullest and instilling a real fear in our characters.
Scorsese has always been a master at the slow burn effect, loading the information down, building his characters and their relation to one another, fully fleshing out the world that they are in, there's a reason most of his movies clock in at over two hours, most exceeding it too. While a lot of other directors would focus on the carnage that is to take place, disregarding development and making an unsuccessful film, Marty flips that and does the opposite, that way when chaos happens it's that much more satisfying. Sam Bowden slowly begins to unravel when Max Cady comes back into town, his relationship with his wife (Jessica Lange, Rob Roy) and his daughter (Juliette Lewis, Ma) begin to waver as Max torments them, at first just by stalking them and staring from a distance, but as the story progresses he becomes even more sinister and disgusting, eventually tricking the daughter into meeting him, which is a truly uncomfortable scene, full of mystery and malice.
The first three quarters of this film are nearly perfect, the intensity ramps up in a slow but not boring fashion, almost stepping into horror during some scenes; Sam hires a hitman to guard his house with him, but when Max Cady does arrive, the professional is no match for the criminally insane villain. It's the final act that really brings 'Cape Fear' down a notch, going into an action set piece set on a boat floating down an angry river in a storm, it's just too silly to be forgiven, the plot gets thrown into the water as Max reveals he's trained himself to become more than human, and for the next 20 minutes he simply will not die, despite the countless and overly unrealistic attempts to get rid of the mad man, such as setting him aflame (done really quite well) to which he survives somehow. If the performances weren't so good during these moments, I would bring the score down even more, but I kept telling myself that these two titans of talent (De Niro and Scorsese) were probably having an absolute blast making this genre picture, and for that there is some forgiveness.
It took me about 5 minutes to get used to De Niro's portrayal of the psychopath Max Cady, it's such a far and away different role for the man whose biggest performance at this point was "Raging Bull" which is a great performance, but it's not nearly as balls-to-the-wall nutty as the one portrayed here in Cape Fear. Max is a low life redneck who, when out of prison receives a very large sum of money from a deceased relative, so looking for some sort of work isn't his priority. What makes this character so terrifying is that he spent 14 years behind bars planning his revenge on his lawyer for trashing a crucial bit of information. Sam Bowden threw the information out because he saw the sick twisted crime committed by his then client and wanted him jailed just as bad as the prosecutors, to which Max finds out and will only rest when his revenge is met. If it weren't for such rock solid performances, along with the confident direction, this would have been an entirely different movie.
Overall Cape Fear is not Martin Scorsese's best film, not by a mile, but it is arguably his most accessible and mainstream, which is what I believe he wanted to do, and prove that he's capable of making this kind of thriller. The flare of past movies is still there, but this one is just a more straightforward affair. The story is simple but exciting, offering a slow burn tension builder, with plenty of humor and drama along the way, until the very intense and very silly last act takes place. The performances are all top notch, especially Robert De Niro's villainous southern Max Cady hell-bent on revenge. It's a fun, sick and twisted thriller hybrid that could have been a silly b movie if it was in the hands of anyone else, but Scorsese and his team yet again created an atmospheric thrill ride filled with plenty for genre enthusiasts to sink their teeth into.
I give Cape Fear 4 stars out of 5
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