Review of The Wages of Fear (1953) by Alex S — 23 May 2010

I think it's kind of interesting that a lot of folks are quick to jump on this film for being "anti-American." To me, this film is just about "anti-everything" as no one is really presented in the best light here.

So we're in a village that has seen better days and our ragtag group of "heroes" has been approached for a business offer: drive trucks full of nitroglycerin to a burning oil fire some hundreds of miles away to collect a staggering $2,000 per person.

Let's think about this for a second: given that the slightest jolt is enough to send a few drops of that stuff sky high, trucks full of the liquid moving across unpaved roads, mountain passes, ridged roads and flooded passes could probably make even the most hardened man reconsider his possibility of making a quick $2,000.

But then again, we wouldn't have much of a movie with that sort of logic so forget it. Actually, the characters do consider this but this is their ticket to freedom (despite the fact that they all know after making such a trip, the lasting trauma will stick around much longer than the money).

So off they go, leaving behind lovers (an unabashedly faithful lady, who at one point is pet on the head like a dog), a big corporate maniac who knows he has sent these men to their doom in the pursuit of big profits and their dead end lives wherein they hope to become something they aren't (though one of them is basically living a lie, so he's just in it for the money and the hope that no one finds out he's as legitimate as a three-dollar bill).

It takes a while to get moving but once you cross that hour mark, this film takes off at the rip roaring speed of a snail's pace. And normally that would be a tragedy in the entertainment world but the tension resulting from this delivery is ridiculous.

From overcoming chunks of missing road to blowing up a boulder in the path, these guys put up with a lot and when all is said and done, well, that old adage that says "getting there is half the fun" fails to be relevant.