Sorcerer (1977)

“I need to know the machine!”

4 men, all from different corners of the world, accept a dangerous job in order to make enough money to buy their way out of the remote Columbian village in which they are hiding. In this film, the tension slowly ramps up, and the later half produces some of the most nail biting sequences ever put on screen. Though everything may look run down & overgrown, this look was by design. The infamous bridge sequence (which cost a cool $3M) was built from scratch on location and rigged with hydraulics, thus supporting the decommission military truck while also looking so dangerous.

Sorcerer was to William Friedkin what Apacalypse Now! was to Coppola. The young filmmaker was hot off two back-to-back mega successes — The French Connection & The Exorcist, and this movie was supposed to be his magnum opus. Shot in the Dominican Republic jungle, the production was plagued from the start. Crew members were constantly being fired, injured, or getting sick, but Friedkin’s arrogant insistance on executing his vision kept the production going, no matter the cost. The film was met with scathing reviews upon release — audiences expecting another supernatural thriller were met with a moody, multi-lingual art film about sweaty men & clunky trucks, and cinemas tried to cut the theater run short in order to keep screening Star Wars, which had just come out a month before.

It took about 30 years for the film community to come around on this movie, and since Friedkin’s death last month, many have been calling this film his best. Though that may be subjective, it is in many ways his most Friedkin-esque movie. His documemntary approach to storytelling always lets the audience decide what is or is not important by letting the characters and events unfold ‘organically’. In Friedkin’s universe, God will smite you at any point, so nothing has value and everything is up for grabs. He blends his heroes and villains into a messy, grey soup of humanity, and it’s thrilling to watch.