Cape Fear

Cape Fear is Martin Scorsese's remake of the 1962 film of the same name. It tells the story of a convict coming back for revenge after his own counsellor sent him to jail instead of defending him. The thematic argument here is balanced and understandable from both characters' perspectives, with debatable moral ambiguity. Parallels drawn between the Law and Bible plus the flawed judicial system decoding by not only the people who work in it but also the criminal who studied everything regarding it are truly fascinating!

However, beyond anything, Cape Fear is a superb psychological thriller that'll grip your body like an anaconda and leaves you suffocating for air until the show ends! The primary reason behind this is of course Robert De Niro as the out-for-blood psychopath Max Cady! The actor embodied the role and delivered an impossibly terrifying persona! The moment Max is released from a 14-year sentence with storm brewing at the background, you know shit will hit the fan soon! There's an amusing irony about the character, in the sense that while he became well-read during his in-time, he still remains an extremely abusive and dangerous person!

Protagonist Sam Bowden struggles to keep his wife and kid safe from Max. His tendency to have affairs and maintain a good relationship with his family throws in a lot of decent conflicts into the mix. As a lawyer, his arc sees a series of dark turns that push him towards an illegal path of hiring goons and even fleeing multiple murders at the end! It has to be mentioned here that Nick Nolte as Sam Bowden and Juliette Lewis as the 15-year-old daughter Danielle gave excellent performances!

Score is classic, and so is the psychedelic title sequence by legendary Saul Bass. The overall look of the motion picture has the quality of a 90s thriller novel. There's so much of energy in the Swish Pans and camera navigation! Scenes wise, Max laughing out loud in theater, being strip-searched, brutally assaulting Sam's girlfriend, almost finding out Sam behind the dumpster and meeting Danielle at the empty theater are examples of sheer engagement! Sam's airport trick, trap-setting at home and the wait for the teddy bear to move are among the many instances of pure tension! Compensation discussion and the first encounter between Cady and the private investigator are classic Scorsese conversations - strong choice of words and sentence structure!

Where, if at all the movie falters, is during the climax portion where we see Max returning to the boat after being burnt. You could tell it's arduous to stage the stunts in the tight space albeit being riveting nonetheless. Also, the believability stretch is quite stringy at parts, particularly pertaining to Sam's inability to pin anything on Max's wrongdoing plus both the eyewitnesses conveniently refusing to testify against the culprit. Lastly, there is definitely a reason why Scorsese decided to go with the fast forward effect edit at places, but it can't help but look gimmicky.