This is how Scorsese follows up Goodfellas? Shame on him. It's so bad... I remember back then Scorsese said that DeNiro talked him into making this movie. Well Martin, if Robert was going to jump off a bridge...? Come on, friendship only goes so far. The script is just so dumb. Scorsese was doomed from the start. What's really shocking is that he managed to get pretty bad performances from this usually rock solid cast. The only ones that came off well are Peck and Mitchum (sorry Joe Don). He takes the great (and sexy) Jessica Lange and turns her a shrill, screaming annoyance. Nolte, strong movie bad ass, is turned into a weak (most of the time), dumb (almost all the time) movie bad ass. And legendary DeNiro is somehow over-the-top and uninteresting at the same time. He only has one really good scene. His accent alternates from okay to silly but always remains distracting. The movie is also too mean. I'm fine with violence in movies (only) but meanness is a huge turn off. I don't like having my nose rubbed in it. On the bright side, the last half hour or so is laugh out loud bad. Unbelievably bad considering the giant talents involved in this one. I don't remember how I felt about it 27 years ago. I think it wasn't one of my favorites but I don't remember thinking it was that bad. But now, wow, it's a borderline camp classic.

Classic films never call for remakes, but when they do, nobody does it better than Marty. Cape Fear is one of his greats. Even after entering a new era in his career following GoodFellas, Cape Fear hearkens back to the days of Taxi Driver, in an equally bone-chilling and psychotic performance by Robert DeNiro. It's a near perfect, old Hollywood style psycho-thriller. Other than DeNiro, it is the cinematography, the editing and the music that makes the picture come alive. It has all the grit and cynicism of a Scorsese picture, with the big production values of a Spielberg picture.

They should not have bothered. Robert De niro goes over the top chewing the scenery and over acting. His Max Cady while demented and seemingly inhuman isn't the scary menace of the original . Robert Mitchum endowed his Max Cady with a human anger and his Cady was human. and all the more believable. Mitchum gave his Cady an intelligence that shone thru. While Deniro only hints at his Cady's intellect.the movie only bares a passing glance to the original and quickly dissolves into parody. Juliette Lewis portrays Danni as a spoiled angry disrespectful teen and nick nolte portrays Sam as border line mentally challenged. And Jessica Lange comes off the worst as her Leigh comes off as a shrew.Either way by the end which was too over the top I no longer cared what happened. Cape Fear deserves another remake because it shouldn't be remembered for this one and give it to a director that wants to do it and stars that want to actually do it and understand the script first.

SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It's natural to want co compare remakes to original films. And for some reason, there seems to be even more of a desire to do so with the two "Cape Fear" films. By pure coincidence, I happened to watch the original on cable (I don't believe I had ever seen it), and just 2 weeks later the 1991 version was on cable.I have always had a great deal of respect for the body of work of Gregory Peck. And while I don't think that Nick Nolte's body of work compares, this film was in what I consider to be Nolte's most productive period. With Robert Mitchum, I didn't always like the roles he chose, but he, too, had many admirable performances. Robert DeNiro was not a favorite of mine in his early years, by the time this film was made, I was really beginning to respect his work. So, my comparison has little to do with whether or not I like the lead actors, I like them all. But then there is Polly Bergen, not a favorite of mine, though I also didn't dislike her performances. In 1991 it was Jessica Lange, also not one of my favorites.But let's get the point -- I strongly preferred the 1962 film. And here's why (not in any particular order):1. I liked the feel of the old South in the 1962 film, which is virtually absent in most of the 1991 film. 2. I admired the restraint and subtlety with which Robert Mitchum approached his role in the original, far more than the over-the-top nature of Robert DeNiro's performance (which is unusual for DeNiro). 3. Gregory Peck was the pillar of virtue in the first film, all the better to draw a distinct line between him and Mitchum. But Nolte is a compromised (though successful) lawyer. The line is blurred. 4. The rape scene in the original was tragic, but eating part of a woman's face is way too far over the top in the later film. 5. The wife in the latter film is emotionally damaged to the point where the viewer feels little sympathy for her. 6. Even the daughter in the later film gets no sympathy here...she's too far along in her sexuality, where the daughter in the early film was almost prepubescent, in practice, if not physicality. 7. The one thing that the newer film has in its favor is a very strong performance by Nick Nolte. It's not better than the Gregory Peck performance, but it is Nolte at his peak before the long slide. 8. The Cape Fear island locale of the ending of the first film was far more spooky than the family house in the second film. 9. It was nice seeing Gregory Peck (this time as a bad guy), Robert Mitchum (this time as a good guy), and Martin Balsam in supporting roles here. But Mitchum and Peck are in roles that just don't fit them. 10. In the first film, there was building suspense throughout the film. Here, the real suspense only comes toward the end of the film. 11. In the original film, violence was used as needed. Here the violence is excessive and over-the-top in order to thrill the audience. 12. The husband and wife sliding around in the blood in this film was simply childish excess. 13. The final insult to our intelligence in this film is that the family all lived despite the violent storm where the boat was destroyed and sank. Trash. Just trash.The original -- Robert Mitchum's masterpiece, This remake -- just tawdry excess. And my respect for everyone connected with it is just a little less after seeing it again after all these years.