Review of Cape Fear (1991) by Andrew M — 20 Aug 2016

A spine-tingling Bernard Hermann score. An opening credits sequence designed by Saul Bass. Crazy camera angles. Out of context, all of these things are the staples of one legendary director: Alfred Hitchcock. With Cape Fear, these attributes are applied as an homage to Hitchcock via another legendary director: Martin Scorsese.

The film, a remake of the 1962 film, which itself drew many inspirations from Hitchcock, takes Scorsese into horror/thriller territory, a genre he has rarely covered, to mostly impressive success. The real reason the film is so unsettling is due to the Oscar nominated performance from Robert De Niro in his seventh collaboration with Scorsese. The way De Niro jumps back and forth from seemingly innocent to absolute psychopath as he manipulates his way into the Bowden family is absolutely creepy, and is handled as well as you'd expect from someone like De Niro. The rest of the performers here, including fellow Oscar nominee Juliette Lewis, Nick Nolte, and Jessica Lange, are all solid too, but there's no stealing the show from De Niro.

Cape Fear isn't without its problems though. As the story progresses, this story makes a sharp turn from a somewhat grounded one to one that is borderline comedic in presentation, which creates a huge tonal inconsistency. If it was intentional, as a kind of gesture to how absurd these kinds of stories can be, it's not a bad decision, but the fact that it's hard to tell isn't a good sign. And while it comes with the story and the themes Scorsese is conveying here, Nolte's Sam Bowden is sometimes hard to relate to, and lacks the kind of characterization that makes you want to root for him.

As a whole, it's not Scorsese's most refined work, but is a thrilling time with lots of tense moments and an expectedly great turn from De Niro to cap it all off.