Martin Scorsese’s 1991 film Cape Fear, a remake of the 1962 film starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum adapted from by John D. MacDonald‘s 1957 novel The Executioners, is one of the director’s lesser works. Oscar-winning cinematographer Freddie Francis adds his touch with an opening credits sequence of eyes reflected over dark water that blends into contrasting negative space: a flood of brightness after the previous dark sequence. It serves as a precursor to the psychological torture the characters will soon endure dealing with an ex-convict, as well as the film’s final shot, where the stark contrast is repeated before morphing into the end credits.
Cape Fear opens with a man doing dips shirtless. That’s Max Cady (Robert De Niro), his tattooed and defined body a result of the long prison sentence he’s just endured. He’s about to be released from prison and he walks with a nonchalant gait, eloquently executed by De Niro. His body spells out the film’s themes: filling up his entire back is a tattoo of a crucifix that doubles as a scale; one side of the scale holds a bible, with TRUTH etched underneath it; the other balance holds a sword, with JUSTICE inscribed below.
Cady has hatched a plan, and the minute he passes through the prison walls it’s set in motion. He immediately begins seeking revenge, methodically and disturbingly well, on lawyer Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte), who sent him to jail for nearly a decade and a half. In prison, Cady taught himself to read and study law. He even appealed his own conviction of statutory rape and battery of a 16- year old after learning that his lawyer purposely buried a piece of evidence regarding the girl being promiscuous, and that Max was unaware of her age.
Bowden’s decision to ignore evidence while serving as a public defender presents the viewer with a profound ethical dilemma. Should laws be sidestepped when dealing with a violent criminal? Cady moves with disturbing grace as he descends on the Bowdens. He rapes the woman Sam is having an affair with, kills the family dog, appears in their driveway when Leigh (Jessica Lange) goes to pick up the mail, stalls outside Sam’s place of work, and—escalating his intrusions—appears at the daughter Danielle’s (Juliette Lewis) school, effectively seducing her.
The final act ratchets up the tension, becoming ripe with the blood and violence that’s a staple of many Scorsese films—though in Cape Fear it doesn’t play out as effectively. The film became Scorsese’s in a roundabout manner. Steven Spielberg was going to take on the remake, though ultimately deemed the violent material more suited to Scorsese. In turn, Spielberg was able to make both Schindler’s List and Jurassic Park, while Cape Fear ultimately worked in Scorsese’s favor after it gave him another box-office hit. It came the year after Goodfellas, the first project that helped revive his directorial reputation after a somewhat lackluster few years.
The most memorable moments of the film come in small doses. When Cady confronts Danielle in the school auditorium and engages in a scrawling cat and mouse game that lands with a kiss, you’re left with a deep sense of discomfort. It’s off-putting just how handsome and seductive De Niro makes Cady. You can’t blame Danielle for succumbing to his charm. Also memorable, in an entirely different manner, is Claude Kersek (Joe Don Baker), a P.I. who drinks a revolting combination of Jim Beam and Pepto Bismol. When he succumbs to Cady’s rage—blood splattered all over the Bowden’s stark kitchen—after having his throat sliced with a piano wire, you can’t help but shrug it off. If anyone were drinking such a combination for days on end, their health probably wasn’t so hot.
The film rests squarely on the cast. De Niro gives another dedicated performance of an angered criminal. He’s creepy, charming, aggressive and enamoring to watch, and his character forces you to grapple with the themes of liberty and justice. Nolte twists Sam’s character from a family man and upstanding lawyer working within the rules of law (well, except in the case of Cady) into a paranoid, aggressive man at the end of his rope. By the end of the film, you’re left waiting for one of the two to die; there’s so much toxic masculinity spewing from the pair you no longer care who lives and who dies. Lange delivers as well, though you can’t help but wish the character was given more material with someone as talented as her in the role. Lewis, though creepy in her own right, delivers perhaps the most noteworthy performance after De Niro. The two secured the film’s only Oscar nominations.
A true psychological thriller, this falls, genre and theme-wise, more along the lines of Taxi Driver or Shutter Island, both better films. These films each feature troubled criminals as leads— figures both unsympathetic and charismatic. Cape Fear asks if there can be a hero at when the justice system is as corrupted as the criminal.
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