CAPE FEAR
[Spoilers]
A film review by John Locke
Copyright 1991 John Locke
Coming on the heels of GOODFELLAS, a film destined for the Hall of Fame, I expected Scorsese's CAPE FEAR to check in at a notch or two below. Boy, was I shocked. CAPE FEAR is the first Scorsese film I've seen that I would describe as downright bad. It has some of the director's cinematic panache and it's minimally competent. The acting is fine. DeNiro, in particular, gives great cretin, but that's no revelation. The soundtrack is great, a rework of Bernard Herrmann's from the original CAPE FEAR. But here's where the film falls apart:
* Overall, the plot assaults you with improbabilities at every turn. Very little rings true here. However, there are some nice characterizations--the teenage daughter, for one--that would have been at home in a better picture.
* DeNiro's near indestructible psychopath, Max Cady, is absurd. He's more like the Terminator than a man, programmed to destroy and impossible to stop. Scorsese seemed to be copping the James Cameron style of false endings and phoenixes. Cady is beat up with pipes and chains, doused with boiling water, lit on fire, thrown into a a raging river, and he just keeps coming back for more, as if none of it mattered. This works if you're using monsters; with a man it's just stupid. I couldn't wait for the damn thing to end.
* Nick Nolte plays the Dustin Hoffman character from STRAW DOGS, or maybe one of Charles Bronson's revenge freaks. He's the educated man who has to come to grips with his own savage potential in order to defend his family. Utterly unoriginal. Scorsese tries to dignify the pulp by making psychological connections between Nolte's lawyer and Cady. The effort is strained in the context of the ridiculous story.
* This movie loses big by coming out so soon after THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, a vastly superior thriller. Both films aim for the same kind of psychological intensity. The difference is this. You can retroactively analyze SotL and realize that Lector is perhaps an impossible character, but while the movie is running he takes over the screen. He's completely compelling. But Max Cady doesn't deliver enough intensity. He seems ridiculous and impossible while the movie is going on. (One of the tricks in CAPE FEAR was very similar to a trick in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS--when Cady disguises himself as the maid. Because the trick was so effective and memorable in SotL, I saw it coming from a mile away in CAPE FEAR.)
Rating: $1.50 on the $0.00 to $6.25 scale (popcorn not included).
John
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