Review of Cape Fear (1991) by Rachel H — 12 May 2011

I absolutely adored this movie. So much that after deep consideration, I have crowned it my new favourite movie of all time. This is also my first Martin Scorsese film and the first collaboration with DeNiro I have seen, and may I say, this was a damn good introduction. Cape Fear is an intelligent, tense thriller and remains one of the best (and most underrated) movies of all time in my opinion. It has everything that could make a movie good. Great acting, edge-of-your-seat moments, a great story, and one of the greatest endings I have ever seen in any movie.

Cape Fear begins with a man doing pushups with a close-up of his many tattoos. This man, who is named Max Cady,(Robert DeNiro) is paroled from prison and he goes on the hunt, tracking down his defender (Nick Nolte) who deliberately kept a document from him that may have eased his sentence or gotten him acquitted. It was pretty easy, seeing as Cady was illiterate. Well, now Cady can read, and he wants revenge. His lawyer, Sam Bowden, lives a relatively happy life with his wife (Jessica Lange) and his daughter (Juliette Lewis), and once Max Cady turns up, his life turns upside down.

Even though Max Cady isn't very educated, it becomes clear that he is very smart, harassing Sam and his family strictly within the confines of the law. In the beginning, it doesn't appear that he wants to physically harm Sam, he only wants to drive him insane. As the movie progresses, the physical degree of the harassment escalates, all culminating in the final confrontation on the houseboat. There is also frequent mention of rape, and the beginning of that certain act shown. The movie, while not being outright scary, is extremely intense and menacing, and the movie is better for it.

The story itself is very good and it has loads of extremely tense moments, especially within the last 20-30 minutes and everything on the houseboat. The film is decently written, none of the dialogue really stands out, but it helps the story along, like it's supposed to. I absolutely loved how Scorsese made the film "artsy" with his clever use of camerawork and colour, and the general style of the film was terrific. The score was also fantastic and perfectly memorable. Needless to say, this was one of the most tense movies I have ever seen, and with one of the best endings. It's also very intelligent and stylish and that makes it all the more worthwhile to watch.

The film is bolstered by brilliant performances and its just too bad that a little movie called Silence of the Lambs came out in '91, because if it didn't, De Niro would have won Best Actor instead of Anthony Hopkins. Don't get me wrong, Hopkins deserved his Oscar I'm sure (I haven't seen Silence of the Lambs), but if it had come out in a different year, De Niro would have won. If my previous sentence hasn't explained this, Robert De Niro steals absolutely every scene he is in as Max Cady and proves that he is one of the most talented versatile actors in the business. Every scene he was in he gave me the creeps and if this movie has taught me one thing, it taught me not to trust Italian men with southern accents.

The rest of the cast were fantastic, Juliet Lewis getting an Oscar nomination for playing Danielle, Nick Nolte's daughter, and her performance was definitely worthy of a nomination. Jessica Lange was terrific as Nolte's wife, and everybody else in the cast was splendid as well, although I sadly cannot remember their names. I don't really have much else to say about the film, so I'm going to wrap this up. Watching this movie was a great joy, and I was involved the entire time. This has been officially crowned my favourite movie of all time and rightfully so, as this is a tremendously wonderful movie. One of the best and most underrated movies of all time, I would recommend Cape Fear to everyone and anyone.