Cape Fear (1991)

Director: Martin Scorsese

Starring: Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis, Joe Don Baker, Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, Martin Balsam, Illeana Douglas, Fred Thompson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Sam Bowden has always provided for his family's future. But the past is coming back to haunt them.

Plot: A convicted rapist, released from prison after serving a 14 year sentence, stalks the family of the lawyer who originally defended him.



My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Probably but not for another 20 years.

I'm a huge fan of the original film and if anyone were going to do a remake it should be Martin Scorsese. He makes it better than anyone else probably would have done but it's no home run. For a moment I'll pretend I haven't seen the J. Lee Thompson classic. The '91 film is hit and miss. Hit - the cast. De Niro is all kinds of creepy and was the best part about the picture. Everyone else did a great job but it's him that really makes it worth watching (including the scrummy Illeana Douglas). Miss - the surprisingly slow bits and the ridiculously hard to kill ending. I LOVE the scene where De Niro meets Juliette Lewis in the stage of the dramatic theater. Nice. However, where it's place changes the pacing. I can't describe it well so I'll leave it alone. I love the scene but it's too long or something. One of the many things that Scorsese got right was having Elmer Bernstein re-work Bernard Herrmann's music from the original. 30 years after it was written it's brutal as hell and it goes a long way into helping make De Niro one of the all time great villains.