MUBI

Yawn? You have to be kidding me. The first act does start slow, more noticeable to me the first time I saw it, but after rewatching it I appreciate that aspect more, and the last two-thirds is unforgettably tense. It has to be the best existentialist action film ever made. IT was remade surprisingly well as Sorcerer but that one doesn’t hold a candle to this one in the way it builds both tension and an utter sense of dread. The climb through the mountains always leaves my stomach in knots.

I prefer Sorceror.

In it’s day, I can easily see how this film would’ve been heralded as a dramatic masterpiece of tension and suspense, but – in the face of 56 more years of cinema where realism and grit rule the day this work does not hold up.

Technically, it’s a well directed, if sometimes ham-handed and silly. Especially the end. Was he really so happy-go-lucky that he needed to be shoe-horned into an ironic ending?

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This film is the very definition of tension. The first hour of the film meticulously creates the grungy feeling that encapsulates the entire film, opening on a shot of a child torturing some cockroaches, a clear metaphor for the torture to come. I really have never seen a movie makes you sit on the edge of your seat quite the way this one does. The premise, while being very simple, becomes a microcosm of what these men live, and would possibly die, for. I was specifically drawn to the character Mario’s motivations. He is a handsome, smart, quick witted and street smart French man who is clearly the apple of his favorite barmaid’s eye, something most men in this world would envy for, yet he treats her like a dog. I found his journey the most interesting, because even though he is considered a poor man, he has a roof over his head and isn’t starving. To me, he couldn’t see past his own greed, which was very telling. A clear inspiration on thrillers made since this one, Fear really puts you in the driver’s seat and takes you all the way to it’s thrilling and ironic conclusion.