capone666 SorcererThe funniest jungle game to play is: Who can eradicate the lost tribe first?But a close second has to be transporting dynamite, like in this thriller.In the jungles of Latin America, a hitman (Francisco Rabal), a Middle Eastern militant (Amidou), a fraudulent investor (Bruno Cremer) and a low-level thug running from the mob (Roy Scheider) are brought together for a suicide mission.Out of sheer desperation, each marked man agrees to drive a truckload of dynamite through the rainforest to a nearby oilrig fire. Unfortunately, the dynamite is sweating explosive beads of nitroglycerin that will detonate at the slightest jar.Even though this white-knuckle roller-coaster ride had mega redemption metaphors and an ethereal musical score by Tangerine Dream, Sorcerer's ambiguous title helped it to be obscured by the sci-fi groundswell of 1977. Nonetheless, a dynamite truck in the seventies was less likely to explode than a Ford Pinto. Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

jc1305us Many times, I stumble across a movie that tells a great story in such a way, that I'm constantly thinking about it after I've seen it for the first time. Sunset Blvd and Chinatown, among many others come to mind. This is such a movie. It's hard to overstate how good this film truly is. One of the top directors of the new Hollywood 70's William Friedkin, and one of the best scripts you'll ever see put to screen and it makes for a damn fine show. Four men, escaping to South America, after commuting various heinous crimes, find themselves in a place worse than jail, a poverty stricken hellhole where life is cheap, and the options are few. With no chance of really getting out, the men are resigned to their fates, until an opportunity comes calling: Transport highly volatile dynamite 200 miles across jungle terrain in order to put out an oil well fire. Four men of different backgrounds, an American on the run from the mob, a Frenchman who dropped everything after being caught embezzling money from his company, a Palestinian terrorist, and a Mexican hitman. They seemingly have nothing to offer each other until they come face to face with fear, death, and their own fates. An adventure tale that has no lighthearted moments, and an ending that is one of the most twisting you'll see, you'll see why Friedkin talks about the Sorceror of the films title being a metaphor for the fates that control all of our lives. Thrilling, dire, heart stopping, this is a film for the ages! Highly recommended!!m

Joe Critics can get a hard rap, but prime British film critic Mark Kermode has been recently championing this mostly forgotten film for its anniversary. Granted it has the benefit of being by the director of his favourite film (The Exorcist), but still it piqued my interest, and I'm glad it did.What we have is a very harsh film, where the characters and story lack empathy, as we watch the central group of men go through their Heart of Darkness moments. We have an American mob man, a Middle Eastern bomber and a French banking fraudster (no this is not the start of a joke) who are thrown together after their world collapse and they have to escape their looming punishments.Forced by circumstance to win a job that will see them have to cross the Central American jungle in clapped out trucks with highly volatile explosives in the back, they are on a journey to nowhere to win the purse and passports needed to survive.I don't want to spoil anything at all here, as there are some great suspenseful scenes here which will have your heart in your mouth. It's got the full direction and style that those who loved The Exorcist will understand, and again sound is a major part of the movie and the clincher. Wonderful soundtrack and sound effects, and on a big screen it all comes together.I can't think of how they could have got better than our leads in the film, with Roy Schneider being the most recognisable, who finds this job from hell one he has to finish but at what cost? The only question is how was this gem forgotten for so long? Wonderful tough viewing, but really original and something that is a great 70s contemporary snapshot of great filming of the era, a true golden age of cinema movies.Crank up your motors and go traipse through whatever growth you have to get to watch this, recommended viewing.

jwsanfrancisco yes, I think I saw this movie in 1983,just caught it now on a library DVD; movie takes place in 70s,must be an apolitical thriller(shadowdancer?); as there is no mention of politics; although there are many political graffiti posters pasted everywhere on walls of buildings, hotels, taverns('El cossario' bar),giant oil pipes on shoulder of roads from airport to makeshift town in middle of nowhere;a generillisimo(Somozista?) in full uniform w/ the caption,'UNIDOS HACIA EL FUTURO'; have no idea?(Make America Great Again?); this would be the perfect place to hide, where nobody in their right mind would even think to look for fugitives on the lam?(Palestinian terrorist,Kassem; Elizabethtown gangster fleeing the mafia,Scanlon; French 'Bernie madoff' inside trader on the lam, Serrano; drug cartel hitmanunnamed actor who laughs hysterically as he lay dying from Nicaraguan contra rebel truck ambush). The 4 fugitives reluctantly work for the oil company,'Companie de Recursios Petroleros'(subsidiary of Exxon?,BP? Russian Gazprom?, doesn't make clear); while it doesn't make clear how the oil rig exploded(somebody was seen connecting some wires to a bomb);it was clear that many indigenous peoples in south America equate US government w/ capitalist American latex factories, oil companies, sugar plantations, & make their terrorist sympathies quite clear[---'to tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.'--Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.]. So this is set in the 70s, the era in which this film is set,which also, ironically, is the time(from 1979-to early 90s), that the left-wing socialist Sandinista government was in all out war against the US militarily backed Nicaraguan Contras who, by 1986, were reduced to isolated acts of commando raids,as the Sandinista government gained more popular support from the population. This was one of the most ambitious,costly paramilitary & political action campaign for the 'hearts & minds' mounted by the CIA in decades. So if you multiply the political turmoil in Ukraine by 10, you have the setting ..In the last 3 heartbreaking minutes