This is a good looking film with many varied scenes and set-ups designed to create interest and sustain suspense. The main problem is those mini biographical prologues, apparently taken out of most European release prints. In a wonderful, almost feature length interview on the Blu-ray release Friedkin and Nicolas Winding Refn both enthuse over these anti-hero participants. Trouble is, for the casual viewer, the lack of involvement with these 'bad men' may reduce the stress of the suspense scenes but without it those long stretches of endeavour can become wearing. There are odd inconsistencies throughout the film regarding financial payments, routes to be taken and effects of their efforts and occasional uncomfortable jump cuts but the Tangerine Dream music sustains us, just about.

William Friedkin's colossal money-draining box office failure follow-up to the astronomical success of 'The Exorcist' is actually not that bad. The film is a muddied, confusing, macho affair that condenses a three-hour film into two, but fits comfortably alongside other tense, post-Vietnam films of the period, such as 'The Deer Hunter' and 'Apocalypse Now' (both of which are far superior, admittedly) -- all of them dealing with a damaged, fearful American psyche, reeling from feverish foreign defeat.The story is predictable (there are two jeeps, so one of them is getting blown up, and we know it won't be the one with American Roy Scheider at the wheel) and it's hard to like any of the characters, but as visual spectacle, the film feels authentic and powerful, and at times it is eerily beautiful in its tense malignancy. Tangerine Dream provide the synthy, proto-80s action/horror film soundtrack, which is enjoyable.

Being a big fan of Henri-George Cluzot's extraordinary Film Noir The Wages of Fear,a friend gave me the US remake on my birthday. Whilst keen the see the remake,I found myself just going back to the original when I would get a chance to. Taking part in an ICM film exchange project,I was happily caught by surprise,when the title was chosen for viewing,which led to me finally casting a spell.The plot:Caught partaking in various crimes, Nilo, Kassem, Victor, and Jackie each live/hide in a town that has been destroyed by poverty.Wanting to get their hands on any serious cash,they each accept an offer from a company to each take stacks of dynamite to the other side of town in order to close an oil well. Setting off,the drivers soon begin to fear that a fuse has been lit on their lives.View on the film:Backed by Paramount and Universal,the DVD transfer from Universal is shockingly poor,with the print looking like it has been used as a brush,and the original mono soundtrack having a slightly muted quality.Driving deep into the jungle,director William Friedkin & cinematographers Dick Bush and John M. Stephens shred the Film Noir anxiety of the original,to light an Action flick fuse. Building the bridge for real, (with added,hidden safety features!) Friedkin drips the tension of the drivers across the screen with elegant wide shots swaying to the surrounding jungle and picking up every wrong turn that takes place. Turning the wheels with a rapid-fire opening giving each of the drivers an intro,Friedkin blends ultra-stylised overlapping close-ups with Tangerine Dream's great, spidery score to give the jungle a peculiar,other worldly atmosphere. Going down a different road to the original,the screenplay by Walon Green delves into the background of the drivers with a frantic crime edge opening,that reveals the deal that has led to the drivers deciding to put their hands on dynamite. After setting everyone up,Green is disappointingly unable to bridge the action with the personal,as a lack of building any type of bond between Nilo and Jackie Scanlon (played by a very good,tough Roy Scheider and a playful Francisco Rabal) leading the action to look enticing,but lacking a much needed psychological depth to make this sorcerer cast a magical spell.

... by the Sorcerer's Apprentice and he washed out. From time to time I get the feeling that the bulk of the people who post comments here and myself watched two different films but in this case we simply disagree on a fundamental point. All the comments I've read are falling over themselves to award Freidkin brownie points for beginning with the back story i.e. literally showing us how the four losers wound up in the South American hell-hole. I would argue that this weakens the main thrust of the story rather than strengthens it. Henri-Georges Clouzot who made the original and best version in 1953 knew how to construct a suspense-laden screenplay and knew that what mattered was how the men coped with the stressful, perilous journey; the very fact that they had pitched up in this remote cauldron of despair presupposed desperate pasts and I doubt if any one of the millions who watched and thrilled to Clouzot's screenplay devoted even a nano-second's speculation to how the four losers came to be there. Clouzot himself earns brownie points for shooting in black and white; colour detracts far more than it adds to the story. This leaves the cast and whilst Roy Scheider and Bruno Cremer - who played Inspector Jules Maigret in several TV movies - are adequate they are light years short of Yves Montand and Charles Vanel. Like the man said, if it ain't broke don't fix it.