Where would you rather be? On a truck full of nitroglycerine in the South American mountains or on a raft on the totally unexplored Amazon with greedy religious fanatics in the 16th century?
One of the all-time white-knuckle tension-fests in cinema history, Wages of Fear drops us into a very remote and mountainous region of Las Piedras, where four men in two trucks must transport a load of nitroglycerine over extremely bumpy terrain at the behest of a monolithic oil company to earn $2,000.
Masterfully directed by Clouzot, Wages of Fear wrings every drop of suspense from its fraught premise. Critic Pauline Kael called it the “the most original and shocking French drama of the ’50s… the violence is not used simply for excitement—it’s used to force a vision of human experience.” Roger Ebert concurred, saying “The film’s extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema.”
The film was beautifully remade as Sorcerer in 1977 by William Friedkin, but, even so, there’s no topping the original.