Cape Fear (10th Anniversary Edition)

Rating:
Summary: A good movie,
Review: But don't compare it to the original; that's not fair. In some ways, they're almost 2 different films. This one has entertainment value, for sure, including DeNiro's over-the-top performance and the cameos by the original's stars. Nolte, Lange and Lewis are all OK, but ultimately not really believable in terms of the whole picture. Worth watching, but catch the original too, for sure.
PS to a certain March 14 reviewer: First, learn to spell and use English properly. Second, the original "sucked" to you because it didn't have enough violence or tattoos, right? Yeah. THERE's a legitimate reason.....

Rating:
Summary: The worst horror movie I've ever seen!
Review: The 1991 remake of "Cape Fear" is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Not only because it's graphically violent, but also it's horribly acted by most of its cast. I've never been a big Robert DeNiro fan, because he seems to play the same type of character in almost every movie he's in: the brutal, foul-mouthed tough guy who beats people up every chance he gets. In "Cape Fear", he plays that exact character, only this time it's in a slasher film rather than a drama. Juliette Lewis also overacts as the teenage daughter and Nick Nolte fares no better. Jessica Lange is alright but forgetable. Ultimately, for those who have not seen this movie, stay away and rent a more psychological horror/thriller like "Misery" or the 1963 version of "The Haunting".

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant comic nightmare
Review: It's easy to underestimate Scorsese's "Cape Fear," with Robert DeNiro taking his shtick over the top and its other cartoonish elements, but I gather I'm not alone in enjoying and admiring it more and more each time I see it. The main question seems to be how seriously one should take a movie like this, a question made more difficult by one scene of excessive violence that seems out of place even if it's essential to the tension that the film builds with such perfect steadiness.

The best way to view "Cape Fear" is as an exquisite comic nightmare, and one of its most delicious cosmic jokes is the way it reincarnates actors from the original, morally simple 1962 version into a morally gray alternative universe and puts them up to no good. Gregory Peck, the saintly father in the original, reappears as a southern dandy lawyer working for the villain, Max Cady, who is deferentially addressed as "Mister Maximilian Cady" by bored judge Martin Balsam, who was an honest cop in his previous incarnation but rules in favor of the villain here. Robert Mitchum, formerly Max Cady, comes back as a sleazy and unhelpful cop who recommends vigilante measures to swat the new Cady, played by DeNiro and his patented furrowed mask.

Bad karma bounces around everyone and flows along some particularly fascinating contours within the Bowden family as it's besieged by Cady, the merchant of vengeance. Nick Nolte is brilliant as Sam Bowden, the ethically challenged, unfaithful lawyer whose betrayal of former client Cady is the seed of the entire nightmare. The fact that he was justified -- as a person, not as a defense lawyer -- in helping to get Mad Max a scholarship to the state pen only makes the karmic energy more beautiful. Jessica Lange smolders gorgeously as wife Leigh Bowden, forming a metaphysical alliance with Cady as they both punish Sam for his infidelities, and is simultaneously repulsed and seduced when Cady appears and disrupts her sublimated discontent. Juliette Lewis is spellbinding as the pubescent daughter Danny, whose disillusionment with her parents has her flirting with big bad wolf Cady, making for some of the most squirm-inducing scenes since Woody Allen dated fifteen-year-old Mariel Hemingway in "Manhattan." (After seeing her in "Cape Fear," Wolfy Allen immediately cast Lewis as his child-nymph girlfriend in "Husbands and Wives.")

DeNiro plays more of an unstoppable force of nature than a character, though some of his affectations and fashion statements as a poor southern "cracker" are enjoyably vivid and almost every scene with Nolte is taut as piano wire. He also makes the most of some genuinely rich dialogue, and though some of it sounds like a Travis Bickle fantasy ("You threatenin' me?"), at one point he considers leaving the Bowdens alone and pursuing an alternate career path: "Well, I could go to California and teach earthquake preparedness." Cady's choice of transportation in the third act can also only be considered a joke, though I remember the audience audibly groaning instead of laughing upon seeing this in the theater.

Some of "Cape Fear"'s most best comic touches are furnished by Joe Don Baker as Kersek, the private detective hired by Sam, first to ineptly track Cady, then to scare him off. Amazingly, Max isn't easily intimidated by empty threats emanating from fat alcoholic cop-wannabes, so Kersek is finally employed to terminate Cady with extreme prejudice and the aid of Kersek's homemade alarm system made from twine and stuffed animals. (One can't help thinking that "Jaws" might have been funnier if Kersek had been contracted to hunt the shark.) Cut to a pool of Kersek's blood on the kitchen floor, which sets off a notorious scene that may be the finest example of Scorsese's extraordinary knack for gallows humor -- the delicious combination of terror and farce (a close contender being the famous re-burial scene from "Goodfellas"). As the blood-splattered Bowdens run out of the house, the film is interrupted by a public service announcement from the National Rifle Association: Nolte fires his gun randomly into the night while Lange screams the NRA's slogan, "He might be out here!"

Scorsese's editor Thelma Schoonmaker probably deserves much of the credit for "Cape Fear"'s comic timing, its lovely smooth crescendo of tension, and its sumptuous melding of image and music. Composer Elmer Bernstein adapted Bernard Herrmann's original "Cape Fear" musical score, and the music makes the opening titles alone (by Saul Bass) worthy of hushed attention. There's a much commented-on sequence in which Leigh Bowden (Lange) gets out of bed and goes to her boudoir mirror to apply lipstick as if in erotic anticipation just before Max Cady appears outside on a perimeter wall, aglow under fourth-of-July fireworks and in mock-seductive repose. The tinted negatives X-raying her emotions, camera motion through the interior nightscape, string tremolos, and distant fireworks sounds are all combined masterfully to create a very subtle mood, one that may be easy to miss in a film that also employs many unsubtle touches.

"Cape Fear" doesn't contain a single weak scene or extraneous note until the final showdown aboard a houseboat on the storm-surged Cape Fear River itself. Max Cady, now a combination Rasputin and Barry Scheck, refuses to die and at last conducts his cross-examination of the defendant Sam Bowden, showing a surprising knowledge of and deference to the rules of evidence and courtroom procedure. The sequence has some terror-humor, and the epilogue has poignancy, but it gets too silly even for the ablution of beautifully-filmed splashes to be entirely effective. But endings are hard, and lots of things in life lose their charms in the end, while still being well worth the ride.

Scorsese seems interested these days only in making more serious pictures, and "Cape Fear," made in 1991, is the most recent frivolous or semi-frivolous movie he's made, followed by an "Age of Innocence," "Kundun" and "Gangs of New York" period marked by worthiness and varying degrees of pretension. Movies like "The King of Comedy," "The Color of Money" and "Cape Fear," which are more purely for fun, seem to be behind him, and that may be a shame.

Rating:
Summary: What a nightmare..In a good way
Review: Robert , oh Robert..how you can act! This is the one that stays with you for ever. I still "quote" lines from this movie, and this was years ago. Jessica Lang, she makes you want to " hate her, yet, you feel sorry for her being married to a jerk " Nick". The Daughter? They couldn't of found a better " vergin".

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: Robert DeNiro is at his best in this movie, no question.

I'm so tired of people who watch Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino movies and are surprised by the violence. Are you joking? That's part of what make's them such powerful actors.

Why is the ending to this movie being criticized in comparison to the ending of the original? The original's ending was not any better than the ending in this movie, to say the least. The ending in this version is a great climax, and show's the huge amount of anger and rage built up inside DeNiro's character.

This movie also show's the folly of the prison system. I believe of course that rapists and murderers should be imprisoned, so DeNiro's character got what he deserved. But if someone commits a lesser, non violent crime, and are imprisoned than a mistake is definitely being made. Sending someone to prison and having them come out as hardened criminals isn't exactly a productive and effective way of cleansing our society. We only make it worse that way.

Rating:
Summary: Only Idiots don't like this version
Review: This is a great movie. Its better than the first. The first one while entertaining its not Martin Scorceses version. First of all watching DeNiro play a evil man is fun and entertaining. He is downright creepy and scary in this movie. It is a total thriller if you have never seen it. I like this so much better than the original because of DeNiro's Max Cady is so much more trashy/ hateful and vile! DeNiro's accent in this movie is great and its fun to try and which you may find yourself doing after you watch it.

Rating:
Summary: "I GOT YOU NOW BITCH!"
Review: This is probably my favorite De Niro performance. In this, my man is IN SHAPE. And he's a master at f_____g with Nick Nolte and his family; a textbook performance on how to psychologically mess with another person's head. Max Cady knows how to work the ladies also - as the poor chick who gets a mouthful of her face chewed off will agree. Everyone here is at the top of their game.

Rating:
Summary: Great movie!
Review: I really liked Cape Fear. DeNiro is amazing as always, the man cannot go wrong in my book. Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange and Juliet Lewis all do great jobs.

Rating:
Summary: Movies of this magnitude are almost nonexistent !
Review: Just watched this movie for the first time in over 12 years!
I remember it being good, but had obviously forgotten that it was a masterpiece!
The movie is set in the present day, but its filmed in a 1930's-thriller style - complete with an (intentionally) over-the-top classical soundtrack, and sets that aren't intended to look lifelike - i.e. a similar style to `American Psycho'.

Next comes the acting. Wow! How I love good acting like this. Knockout performances from everyone.
Probably DeNiro's best ever performance. Nick Nolte is simply brilliant. And Juliette Lewis... oh my... she plays the part, of a 15 year old schoolgirl, who's unable to resist her sexual attraction for an ex-convict (DeNiro) who's the same age as her father - who subsequently seduces her in her classroom! The sexual tension in this seen is incredible, and Lewis plays the part to perfect, mesmerizing you along the way.

When all of the sections of a movie - acting, actors, story, screenplay, music, direction, cinematography, production - are perfect, and are masterfully combined, it creates something with this magnitude - `Cape Fear `91'


Rating:
Summary: Better than most remakes
Review: I saw this film before I saw the original. I mainly watched it because I noticed on the credits that Bernard Herrmann had music that was adapted for the film. I didn't know that there was an original Cape Fear, because I hadn't heard of either film, and I still hadn't done a lot of study about Herrmann yet, but I was introduced to the late Elmer Bernstein through this film, and had never heard any of his music yet either (probably in Ghostbusters, because I'm sure I saw that film then). I could not get off my seat watching this movie, and I just wanted to keep on watching it. I did recognize Herrmann's sound, but since it was adapted, it sounded slightly different, mainly in the trumpets. I love both versions of this film, and find great performances in both. I usually like originals better, but I do believe that I like this film more than the original. It keeps you glued to your seat, and has a more intense ending. But the original is also very well done, and very strong for it's own time.