Subtitles:

English (SDH), French, Spanish, none (burned-in for the non-English dialogue)

Extras:

• Blu-ray presented as a BD Book featuring 40 pages filled with beautiful images and excerpts from the book “The Friedkin Connection a Memoir”. Includes a new and personal forward written by Mr. Friedkin.

The plot of William Friedkin's suspense thriller originated with the same Georges Arnaud novel that inspired Henri-Georges Clouzot's French suspense classic The Wages of Fear (1953). Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, and Amidou play four men who, for various reasons, cannot return to their own countries. They end up in a dismal South American town where an American oil company is seeking out courageous drivers willing to haul nitroglycerin over 200 miles of treacherous terrain. The four stateless men have nothing to lose -- and, besides, they'll be paid 10,000 dollars apiece, and be granted legal citizenship, if they survive. The suspense is almost unbearable at times, even outdistancing the tension level of The Wages of Fear in certain scenes. Sorcerer had all the earmarks of a moneymaker, but this picture bombed for a rather odd and silly reason: its glaringly inappropriate title. Fans of Friedkin's Exorcist may have gone home disappointed that not one sorcerer ever rears its ugly head.

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. Tangerine Dream has since done dozens of superior scores for films as diverse as RISKY BUSINESS and THIEF (Friedkin once stated that if he had heard the band's music before he finished Exorcist, he would have hired it to do the music for that film as well). While critics bemoan Friedkin and screenwriter Green's changes in the story line and lengthy expository passage (the film runs 70 minutes before the men actually board the trucks), they forget that The Wages of Fear also has a long first half. Both films develop their characters fully. While the French film is more subtle and takes some jabs at the American exploitation of foreign resources, SORCERER retains the French film's social concerns and goes one step further by introducing a revolutionary movement intent on removing the oil company.

Gary Tooze

April 11th, 2014