Sorcerer (1977)

This movie had the misfortune of opening a month after Star Wars.  No theater owner wanted to stop showing Star Wars for this jungle adventure.

The movie opens in Vera Cruz, Mexico where a man in a hotel room has just poured himself a drink when Nilo (Francisco Rabal) walks in and shoots him.  The assassin slips away.  Next, we see several men in Israel who leave a bomb in their wake.  No sooner have they rendezvoused back at their apartment than the military arrives.  Two bombers are killed, one is arrested, and only Kassem (Amidou) escapes.  In France, Victor Manzon (Bruno Cremer) is summoned to the bank where he is threatened with criminal prosecution for fraud on account of having offered worthless collateral.  Given 24 hours to arrange payment, his plans go sideways and he flees the country.  In New Jersey, Jackie Scanlon (Roy Scheider) is involved in a heist against a well-connected mobster.  The only survivor in a car accident immediately after the heist, he flees the country.  As it happens, all four of these men find themselves in the same backwater Latin American village.  Three of the fugitives work under assumed identities for an American oil company, the big employer in the region.  The plot moves into high gear when an oil well explodes and is now a free-standing flame thrower that needs to be 'blown' out with explosives.  The only explosives available are highly unstable.  Four men are needed to risk life and limb to deliver them to the well, just over 200 miles away through dense jungle.

 

The movie builds very slowly.  The introduction of each character is interesting but might have been better provided in a flashback so that there isn't a long gap between a character's introduction and his next appearance.  The middle part that covers their unenviable lives in the squalor of a jungle village is slow and generally boring.  The two trucks driving through the jungle and overcoming tremendous obstacles is intense and the best part.  More of this and it might have been a better competitor for Star Wars.

 

The very best portion of the movie is when the two trucks come to a giant tree that is blocking the road.  Kassem, the Palestinian bomber, uses one of the boxes of explosives and rigs a timer with a bag of sand and a rock.  The blast is magnificent.  This alone makes the movie worth seeing.

 

The name of the movie comes from one of the two trucks.  Apparently, it was common to give names to vehicles and the two trucks are named Sorcerer and Lazaro.  The movie is based on the 1950 French novel, "The Wages of Fear" by Georges Arnaud.