Four seedy criminal outcasts risk their lives in pursuit of redemption, both legal and moral, by driving unreliable trucks stocked with nitroglycerine through dangerous landscape to cap an oil well fire in a Central American banana republic. Featuring a trance-like score by Tangerine Dream and a visceral, astonishing performance by Roy Scheider, Friedkin's reinterpretation of Clouzot’s 1953 masterpiece is perhaps the best remake of all time and is among Friedkin’s most daring works. Three sequences alone –a chaotic car crash in Boston, the unloading of charred bodies in a Central American village, and the explosives laden trucks crossing a rickety storm-blown bridge – render Sorcerer a classic and retain their power to make audiences gasp. Released the same year as Star Wars, Friedkin's audacious masterpiece represents the braver road abandoned by the studio system.
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