Cape Fear Blu-Ray

• 20th Oct 2011

After Universal helped with the funding of The Last Temptation of Christ, director Martin Scorsese took on board this Hollywood thriller as a favour to the studio and the films leading man, Robert De Niro. It certainly paid off as the $35 million budget was surpassed by worldwide takings of over $182 million. Helped along by Universal’s advertising campaign and a handful of Oscar nominations this quickly became Scorsese’s biggest money earner and remained so until The Aviator and The Departed over a decade later. Despite Scorsese proving to himself that he can work as a jobbing director working within the studio system for genre requirements it remains one of his weakest films. Irony aside, a weak Scorsese film is still a lot better than most directors output.

The film is a remake of a solid B movie from 1962 starring Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck. De Niro takes on Mitchum’s role as Max Cady, a dangerous rapist who is recently released from a 14 year stint in prison and with a grudge held against his defence lawyer, he sets about destroying the man. De Niro is having the time of his life here, it’s an OTT performance as a crazed, cartoon-like villain but it remains an intense, darkly funny and equally terrifying performance and he certainly deserved his Oscar nomination. He lost out to Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs which to anyone with half a brain would know was a supporting role.  Whether or not De Niro deserved to pick up another statuette due to this performance is beside the point, what is worth taking note off is that this is the last performance he has been nominated for. So over 20 years, the greatest living actor has not given us another Oscar worthy role. Now that’s a crime.

Nick Nolte is in the Gregory Peck role as Sam Bowden with Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis doing fine work also as Bowden’s wife and daughter. Whilst in support there’s nice work from Illeana Douglas, Joe Don Baker and most deliciously Mitchum and Peck themselves.  So with a great cast that all deliver (Lewis also received a nomination) and with Scorsese behind the camera, surely this should have worked.

Instead what we have is a bonkers, bold and overblown thriller that forays into silly horror territory too often. Scorsese’s direction is fantastic technically, he plays around with a number of visual tricks but really the melodrama of the entire thing is just very hard to take. It also belittles the tension by being so histrionic and weakens the good work of the actors. The story just becomes increasingly unbelievable as it goes on with De Niro becoming more of a monster here than he became in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Yet every now and again there flicks in a moment of brilliance, such as De Niro and Lewis’ skin crawlingly uncomfortable seduction scene.

Overall it’s a frustrating film. Scorsese is clearly influenced by Hitchcock but with this gothic thriller he has as much subtlety as a sledgehammer, or should that be a rake? (see what I did there?) It’s a film that Scorsese fans will want to like but it’s more likely to be enjoyed by people who aren’t Scorsese fans.

Extras

Deleted Scenes

Nothing of particular note here and the quality is poor.

The Making of Cape Fear

A brilliant documentary which takes an in-depth look at the entire process of the making of the film; from the early read-through (Kevin Kline and Steven Spielberg?) to the casting process and the production itself. It runs for over an hour and contains interviews with all the major players involved.

Behind the Scenes of Parade

No commentary but a quick look at behind the scenes.

On the set of the Houseboat

It’s quite amusing seeing the cast getting sprayed by giant water hoses but they seem to be having a good laugh. Actors must feel like right idiots sometimes.

Photograph Montage

Pictures of Scorsese and his cast both in front and behind the camera. A little pointless really.

Matte paintings

All those colourful sky drops were done by CGI.

Opening Credits

Ten minutes worth of opening credits from other Saul Bass works. Would have been better served by a short documentary.

Theatrical Trailer

Gives too much away, should focus more on the mood than the story. However this is a film out to make money so I wouldn’t be surprised if the studio had a hand in this to make the film look as appealing as possible.

Overall it’s an OK film, great acting and technically dazzling but leaves a nasty aftertaste and is far too overblown for its own good. The blu-ray picture is excellent and you see every little bead of sweat on the actors’ foreheads. Special features are quite good, spearheaded by an excellent documentary. What really would have made this a must buy though is if The Simpsons parody episode was included. Now there’s a classic.

Stewart McLaren