Review of Cape Fear (1991) by Kevin D — 14 Feb 2010

I look at film remakes the same way I look at cover songs: they're pointless and unnecessary. Chances are you'll never top the original and there isn't much to improve on or change. Once something has been done, it's pointless to make the same exact thing again, unless you're looking to make money.

Of course, most remakes don't have Martin Scorsese directing Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte (man, I've been watching way too many Nick Nolte movies lately). The fact that this one has all that talent and still ended up sucking is that much more disappointing.

But what do you expect, this is a remake. I think Scorsese over-directed this one. He really overdoes the musical score. The score is booming in every scene and Scorsese tries to make scenes seem scary with the music.

When the same musical score is playing over every scene, it kind of loses its effect (kind of like how Scorsese overdoes the musical score in the trailer for Shutter Island. Instead of making the trailer seem scary with the music, he overdoes it and the intended effect is lost.

). Also, you know the camera motion that Scorsese loves: the one where the camera is low, then zooms in while looking up at a character during a crucial moment (you'd know it if you saw it.)? Well Scorsese overdoes that here too.

Scorsese probably knew the material he was working with here was weak, so he tried to make the film look and sound better than what it really was. The story itself is pretty standard and predictable: a psychopath gets out of jail and stalks a family.

Does the psychopath stalking a family storyline sound similiar to another movie? You're probably saying, "Yes it does. It sounds like What About Bob?" Can you tell me what year the terrible movie What About Bob? came out.

You're probably saying, "I sure can. What About Bob? came out in 1991." Correctamundo. Now can you tell me what year the piece of garbage film Cape Fear came out? You reply, "It came out in 1991.

" That's absolutely correct. 1991. Cape Fear and What About Bob?, two terrible movies that essentially tell the same story (in different manners of course) came out in the same year. Is that a coincidence? I think not.

Maybe Martin Scorsese and What About Bob? director Frank Oz (yes, the same Frank Oz who voiced and did the puppet work for Yoda in the original Star Wars films) got together back in 1991 and said, "Hey let's make two annoying movies that are basically the same and release them in the same year.

We'll piss off audiences with how terrible the movies are, but we'll be swimming in cash. This will be the greatest inside joke ever. Andy Kauffman would have never thought of this!" Well guess what, if that's true, they must have been happy afterward.

Cape Fear was awarded with two Academy Award nominations (Best leading actor for De Niro, which was a decent performance, but not nomination worthy, and best supporting actress for Juliette Lewis (who is one of my favorite actresses), which is a performance I will discuss a little bit later.

). Cape Fear is also Scorsese's second highest grossing movie, so it appears that from a commercial standpoint his little scam was a success. Getting back on a serious note, why would Scorsese direct this movie? At this point in his career, he had already directed classics like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, After Hours, The King of Comedy, and he was freshly off of making Goodfellas.

Cape Fear is a commercial movie designed to make money. It offers nothing new or thought provoking or even enjoyable. Let's get to the acting. In this movie Bob De Niro reminded me of Harvey Keitel.

He had similar hair to Keitel (I would like to say a few things about De Niro's hair in this movie. It was very annoying. It was wild, almost like Dr. Will's hair from Big Brother. Also, De Niro even had a pony tail in a few scenes.

It was really embarrassing to watch. I just wanted to chop his hair off.) and De Niro even pulled off a very good Southern accent. At first he's somewhat hard to understand, but you'll get used to his voice.

Even though I didn't like this movie, De Niro delievered a physically good performance. He really transforms into this guy. Nick Nolte was actually good in this movie. However, get used to Nolte doing one of his favorite acting tools: going from really loud to extremely quiet in the same scene.

Keep your remote handy so you can pump up the volume when Nolte talks. Juliette Lewis was pretty good in this movie. There is actually one scene in this movie featuring Lewis and De Niro that is probably the best and worst scene in this movie.

The acting in this particular scene is brilliant. It's simply twelve or so minutes of Lewis and De Niro exchanging dialogue. It's acting paradise. The problem with this scene is that Lewis and De Niro are flirting with each other throughout the scene when Lewis knows that he is a murderous psycho that has been stalking her family.

It's just unbelievable watching this scene. She makes out with him and it seems like she falls in love with him. She even defends him to her family. And remember, at this point in the movie she knows he's a murderer, a rapist, and a stalker.

That's just one of the unbelievable things in this movie. Here are a few other conveniently unbelievable things in this movie: De Niro's character must have had a GPS in his brain because he's very good at randomly finding people with little information and he's a very dumb villain because he has dozens of opportunities to kill and rape the family (if those were his intentions, he really doesn't say what his exact plans for revenge were), but he never takes advantage of the situations.

There is also an image that I'm not going to ruin here that takes place within the last twenty minutes of the movie that is so ridiculous and unintentionally hilarious that it would be a sin for me to ruin it for you.

De Niro's character was just unbelievable to me. His character was angry because he felt that Nolte's character (a lawyer) did a lousy job of defending him on trial. So what is De Niro's first plan upon leaving prison? Getting back in prison by murdering Nolte and his family.

How dumb does this movie think the audience is? This movie is watchable, but it's dumb and predictable and it's a complete waste of great talent.