Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A list of the exquisite and unrecognized little details of Friedkin's towering existentialist masterpiece: Pazuzu's head in the wall (Viva La Exorcist!) the split-mirror close-up, the glazed pig in the French restaurant, the blackened eye of the bride in the church about to be robbed, "with one gesture of his hand, he removed them from this world", the native in the road, mocking the trucks and inviting them deeper into the jungle, "this isn't what you expected, is it?.... No, it's exactly what I expected...." "Have you met our ex-Reich Field Marshall?", the painting of kittens, the little cardboard arrow in the middle of nowhere, pointing downwards, "Poza Rica is dead", Nature itself conspiring againist them by putting the obstacle of the giant tree in their way, the gold timepiece with "In The Tenth Year Of Forever" inscribed on the back, which denotes one of the most subtle yet powerful symbols in the entire film, insofar that the only act of kindness between any of the men, other than what is necessitated by acts of co-operation with one another for the sake of their individual survival, is when the watch's inscription is shown for the last time when recollecting the memory of their children or their lover and at that exact second of rare camaraderie they die, the surreal purple sky and the laughter of a corpse echoing through the canyons, "I don't think I'll be going to Managua", the last dance in the cantina to Charlie Parker's "I'll Remember April". For further reference: "No Exit" by Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus", Louis Ferdinand-Celine's "Journey To The End Of Night"

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!!

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.

Plot; Four desperate men take a dangerous job transporting nitroglycerin across a treacherous stretch of South American jungle.For the first twenty minutes or so of Sorcerer I couldn't get my bearings. It jumps between four seemingly disparate stories with no set up before they all dovetail into one another. We then settle in for a second act that's a slow burn as these four men grow more and more desperate.The final act is a tense, white knuckle ride where I found myself rooting for men that didn't deserve my endearment. The later is a direct result of the former. Well done William Friedkin and company.