Friedkin was famously quoted as telling Henri-Georges Clouzot that he wanted to do a remake of his favorite film The Wages of Fear that would be inferior to the original. He suceeded. He didn’t make an awful film; there are many remarkable sequences. But this film lacks the sharp charactirizations (although it spends 45 minutes showing convoluted backstory unseesn in the French version) and white-knuckle suspense the setting deserves. Friedkin’s version, with its multimillion dollar budget, has flabbergasting photography and great montages. Plus, a neato Tangerine Dream score. I’m glad I saw this important, noble failure of 1970s cinema.
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Jordan Hoffman is a New York-based writer and film critic working for The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Thrillist, Times of Israel, NY Daily News and elsewhere.
He is the host of ENGAGE: The Official Star Trek Podcast, a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and challenges you to a game of backgammon.