Sorcerer

Rather than a fleeting image of violence, however, Friedkin’s cyclical, almost Kafkaesque insistence that politics revolves around now globalized, corporate power delegating hired guns to do under-the-table bidding across national boundaries announces itself through the soundscape, with Tangerine Dream’s electronic basslines substituting for bloodshed. No one escapes the suffocating corrosion of Sorcerer’s polysemous diegesis—not even Friedkin himself, as audiences and industry would have it.

By the time Sorcerer gets around to its rain-soaked, rickety-bridge set piece, you’ll either be obsessed or fully checked out. Give yourself a chance to pick sides.

Friedkin's Sorcerer is just as gripping and spine-tingling an adventure film as The Wages of Fear and, at times, surpasses the original film with breathtaking photography and a superb use of sound (the scene on the bridge is truly amazing). The musical score by German electronic experimental band Tangerine Dream is brilliant and haunting. The eerie electronic music adds immeasurably to the overall effect of the film, complementing the exotic imagery perfectly.

Though there’s gunplay, and more than a few explosions, the focus of this grim jungle odyssey is on the prevention of carnage, the heart-in-throat attempts not to blow something up.

William Friedkin's Sorcerer is a painstaking, admirable, but mostly distant and uninvolving suspenser based on the French classic The Wages of Fear [from the novel by Georges Arnaud]. Friedkin vividly renders the experience of several men driving trucks loaded with nitro through the South American jungle, yet the characters are basically functional. 'Sorcerer' is merely the name of one of the trucks.

Friedkin's pretensions do not entirely defeat the film, and his craftsmanship often rescues him from self-betrayal. But Sorcerer lacks the kind of low cunning — the sorcery — that is Friedkin's strong suit.

Friedkin hints at political themes, but the film suffers most from condescendingly over-emphatic direction, and a generally tedious, relentless grimy realism in the opening half hour

Based more on the 1950 George Arnaud novel "The Wages Of Fear" and less on the 1953 Henri-Georges Clouzot film "The Wages Of Fear" (according to the director, that is) "Sorcerer" follows that same, legendary premise from beginning to end, but with a few twists here and there to keep even the more learned audience members on their proverbial toes. I just still can't get over the brilliance of the premise here. There's almost no other logline in the history of filmmaking that's as simple, yet pregnant with inherent tension and unease. Except for "Speed," of course. Now, did Friedkin somehow manage to mess up a story idea that was simply good from the get-go? Not at all. Yes, the second half is a revelation of stress and horror, but even the first act exhibits such a deft narrative hand. Everything is staged so authentically, leaving you wondering how the hell Friedkin managed to capture certain moments safely and without any anxieties of his own. But back to that second half, nearly every minute of it features some of the most intense, knee-jerk terror and strain you'll ever see in any movie, let alone one from the director of "The Exorcist." An absolute must-see, all quibbles aside.

Cinematography, casting and pacing hold up extremely well in 2026. Sadly the screenplay hasn't aged as well resulting in a limited number of conversations between the lead cast. Nonetheless the tense drama unfolds well on screen. An interesting piece of friedkin filmography.