William Friedkin’s Sorcerer: Still a Wild, White-Knuckle Ride Nearly 50 Years Later

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release dateJune 1977directorWilliam FriedkinstarringRoy Scheider
Bruno Cremer
Francisco Rabal
Amidourating & Run TimePG / 2h 1mFun FactTangerine Dream composed the soundtrack, despite never seeing footage of the film. where to watchAmazon Prime

Nail-Biting Fun

You watch something like Sorcerer and keep telling yourself, “That wasn’t CGI, and that wasn’t special effects. They just did that with a truck!” From that perspective alone, William Friedkin’s 1977 thriller continues to fascinate us gearheads, but it’s also a good movie in and of itself and nail-biting fun for everyone.

From Prologue to Porvenir

Sorcerer starts with four vignettes introducing the main characters: Nilo (Francisco Rabal), an elegantly dressed assassin who kills a man somewhere in Latin America. In Israel, Kassem (Hamidou Benmessaoud, best known as Amidou) is a terrorist who commits a bombing while in Paris, France. Victor Manzon (Bruno Cremer) is accused of fraud by the president of the Paris Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, an Irish gang robs a Catholic church connected with a rival Italian Mafia crew. During the getaway, the driver, Jackie Scanlon (Roy Scheider), crashes but manages to escape.

After these criminal endeavors, each is wanted by the authorities and the mob. They are all men of duplicitous character who have backed themselves into a corner. The only answer is to run. Run far away to where you will never be found. But if you run far enough, you will land on the outskirts of society with no way back.

Such is the conundrum our characters find themselves in. They now all live under assumed names in the far-flung Columbian mining camp of Porvenir. Their situations are desperate, with abysmal poverty and treacherous working conditions. Even the flight out of Porvenir takes more money than they make in a year. The lives they have chosen have led to this. Then, BOOM, there’s a wellhead explosion!

The only way out of this jam