Sorcerer

William Friedkin's 1977 remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic French survival thriller The Wages of Fear was a critical and commercial flop, but its reputation steadily grew—even as it became almost impossible to see due to complicated rights issues. Friedkin spent years trying to untangle the ownership and he supervised a restoration of the film (which also received a theatrical revival in 2013), here making its Blu-ray debut in a beautiful-looking edition. Roy Scheider stars as Jackie, a New Jersey mobster on the run following a botched heist—one of four men hiding out in a grimy South American village who agree to drive trucks carrying dynamite over 200 miles through the jungle. Friedkin shot largely on location, which lends the physical environment a visceral primal quality that makes their journey feel like a trip through an alien world that is waiting to swallow them up. The vehicles almost seem like characters themselves, although the drivers have little dimension, apart from Jackie, who is the driving force (so to speak) in this grinding odyssey, which features challenges that include an enormous fallen tree, a rotting suspension bridge, cliff-side roads that are almost washed away by torrential rains, and a terrorist band hiding in the dense vegetation. The justly famous score by German electronic outfit Tangerine Dream—their first soundtrack for an American movie—greatly contributes to the otherworldly tone. Now considered a minor classic of 1970s American cinema, Sorcerer on Blu-ray is presented in a 37-page digi-book package with no supplements. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)