If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This film is extremely suspenseful and exciting with raw film locations, tension, and excellent character development. Four men risk their lives to escape squalid living conditions in a Latin American country to where they each had fled. But, Fate hangs over the men and will not let them go. The French businessman, Bruno Cremer, discusses the absolute whim of Fate with his wife in a novel she is writing. The idea of instant annihilation is repeatedly visited through the film as these desparate men cannot escape it. There is no safety for the desparate men as you root for them to succeed in the perilous task of transporting unstable explosives over moutains and primative jungle terrain. The four men: a mobster (robbery), a businessman (fraud), a terrorist (bombing), and an assasin (contract murder) are all fleeing from their criminal pasts but cannot escape the cloud of Fate hanging over them. After seeing this film I think "That should not have happened to them", or "They did not deserve that". "They should have escaped that fate because of the tremendous effort and risk they took." It is not to be. This film will not let you go just as it treats its characters. Friedkin's best film!!

I don't think I'll be able to review William Friedkin's 'Sorcerer' without comparing it to Henri-Georges Clouzot's 'The Wages of Fear' since both are adaptations of Georges Arnaud's novel. Both the films are similar in structure. They are both divided into two respective halves. In the first half we get to know about the characters and in the second half we follow them in their thrilling adventure. However there is a marked difference in the way the two filmmakers make us familiar with the characters. Clouzot's film starts off with all the characters already in exile in the South American country and we get to know about them through their interactions with each other. Friedkin takes a different route. In 'Sorcerer' we get extended individual flashbacks of the major characters to convey the reasons behind their exile in an unknown country which actually works very well. Friedkin also does very well to capture the morbid and monotonous nature of life that the primary group of characters have to lead in Porvenir. Then the second half commences and the differences in directorial styles become even more apparent. Although the theme of desperate men willing to go to any lengths to achieve freedom from their present pointless existence is present in both films, but the style of execution of the set-pieces in the two films differ. There is a surgical precision to Clouzot's set-pieces. He uses meticulous editing to create Hitchcock-esque tension as we watch the characters solve problems and overcome obstacles with deduction, logical planning and presence of mind. Friedkin stays true to his creative roots and quite akin to 'The French Connection' and 'The Exorcist', what we get in the second half of 'Sorcerer' is unflinchingly visceral. Instead of prioritising tension and suspense, Friedkin makes the group's mission a 'Man versus Nature' struggle. The set- pieces are not about tension, but about showing these men getting constantly beaten down by nature's forces. Their only ally is perseverance and mental strength. One can't help but get reminded of Werner Herzog(and especially 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God' due to the jungle setting) because of Friedkin's choice to showcase nature in its most merciless, brutal and unforgiving light. Roy Scheider's character could easily be a protagonist in a Herzog film because of his unflinching persistence in trying to overcome nature at all cost and this persistence leads to hysterical paranoia which is again not uncommon in Herzog's protagonists. 'Sorcerer' retains the darkly humorous irony of 'The Wages of Fear'. I have to say that both the films are equally good in their respective ways and deserve recognition.If there is anything wrong in 'Sorcerer', it's that the transition from one mood/tone to another at times is a bit abrupt and clumsy. But in the overall context, it is a very minor complaint. Highly recommended.

Four desperate men agree to transport two trucks containing volatile explosives across a hostile South American jungle. Director William Friedkin, working from a gritty script by Walon Green, keeps the gripping story moving at a steady pace, ably crafts an unsparingly harsh and grim tone, offers a vivid depiction of a hellish third world country in which chaos and corruption reign supreme, and builds a substantial amount of nerve-wracking tension (the scenes with the trucks driving across a rickety rope bridge during a fierce rainstorm are positively harrowing). Roy Scheider brings a strong sense of exhausted fatalism to his meaty lead role as cynical fugitive criminal Jackie Scanlon; he receives sterling support from Bruno Cremer as affable banker Victor Manzin, Francisco Rabal as ruthless hit-man Nilo, Amidou as the scruffy Kassem, Ramon Bieri as huffy oil company foreman Corlette, and Peter Capell as the hard-nosed Lantigue. The sharp cinematography by Dick Bush and John M. Stephens astutely captures the grungy desolation of the dangerous landscape. The pulsating score by Tangerine Dream and the overall mood of nihilistic despair both further enhance the gut-wrenching suspense. A real nail-biter.

... 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.