SORCERER (1977)

Few things screw up a hot, young director’s career like having a major success with a lousy pic or (far worse) a major critical/ commercial flop on your best. And few director’s fell harder or more permanently than William Friedkin after THE FRENCH CONNECTION/’71 and then THE EXORCIST/’73 briefly made him Hollywood’s most bankable helmer.* Friedkin made a lot of films after SORCERER spectacularly tanked, but never fully recovered his mojo after this undeserved comeuppance. A thrilling reimagining of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s famous, existential truck-hauling, nitroclycerine nail-biter THE WAGES OF FEAR/’53, this film opens up the front-story with four brilliantly concise backgrounders on four disparate, desperate men (hitman; terrorist; embezzler; low-level Jersey mob man) who will run the dangerous mission. Self-exiled in some Godforsaken South American oil-producing compound, they gamble everything on an impossible drive thru overgrown jungle territory for a paycheck big enough to restart their lives someplace else. With grimly, terrifying, how’d-they-do-that location shooting, the stunt work is gasp-worthy, yet the film doesn’t scrimp on fascinating character and devious plot construction. The ending, in particular, bests Clouzot at his own game. Roy Scheider, who worked with Friedkin on CONNECTION, is phenomenally good in a role Friedkin wanted, and commercially needed Steve McQueen for, but all the lesser known foreign players are just as effective. (The terrorist, Amidou, especially fine.) Friedkin even got publicly whacked for an end credit dedication to Clouzot. Yet, the film fully earns it. And no one’s stopping you from watching both.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Stateside distributors Paramount and Universal, blindsided at the lack of audience response, put out this absurd poster to let action fans know this wasn’t some damn foreign film with subtitles.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *After a big hit on a piece of crap, you stop listening to anyone; after a flop with your best stuff, you won’t listen to yourself. Over-confidence vs. constant second-guessing.