Cape Fear (1991)

With “Cape Fear,” director Martin Scorsese brings honor back to this 1991 remake. He lights up this renewal of the original with original brilliance.

The 1962 original film noir classic was tight and simple. Scorsese’s version is not less tight, but several times more complex. Desson Howe of the Washington Post Staff Writer said in his review, “In this hyperbolic era of knife-wielding Glenn Closes and indestructible Terminators, Scorsese ups the ante for '90s sensibilities yet never loses his directorial integrity.” In other words, I think this version is superior to the original, which isn’t very often that I will say that.

“Cape Fear” also makes a real performance by Robert De Niro. As the psychotic monster with vengeance on his mind, he’s the movie’s waiting, all-powerful spirit. Howe described De Niro as, “a tattooed, avenging angel of prime-evil justice.” Along with Mr. De Niro, we have solid performances by Nick Nolte and Jessica Lange as the couple that De Niro wants to get payback from. At the end, they tear at each other with convincing desperation.

A few of the original cast members from the original 1962 version make emotionally satisfying cameos, and they are Robert Mitchum, the late Gregory Peck and Martin Balsam. However, the surprise performance is from Juliette Lewis, the one who plays Nolte’s daughter. Thanks to the tactics made by De Niro, she goes from troubled teenager to a woman in a swaying series of stages.

On the direct level, “Cape Fear” is your basic revenge story. De Niro has been behind bars for 14 years, thanks to his attorney Nolte, who was defending De Niro in a rape-and-battery charge. Nolte had decided that his client was a rapist and contained an essential part of the evidence that would have saved De Niro. Now he is released and finds Nolte and his family in the Carolinas. A delicate but harsh harassment begins. With nothing that he can legally accuse De Niro of, Nolte has to take the law into his own hands.

Director Scorsese and screenwriter Wesley Strick turn this B-film noir into a fascinating ethics play. The movie’s filled with themes: Truth and deceit, good and evil, salvation and damnation, treachery and fidelity, freedom and imprisonment.

There are moral twists everywhere. No one is more honest and truth-obsessive than De Niro. Nolte at one part of the movie tells Lange that if he not “betrayed both of us, we might have been different people.”

De Niro is not the only one Nolte has to fight with. Nolte has to fight his own shadowy half. Along with betraying De Niro, he has a traveling eye with women, he treats his daughter roughly and he spoils in unstable legal moves.

“Cape Fear” also has a handful of intimate tensions. A mention of necrophilia and incest gives Nolte and sudden intimate desire for his wife. He’s also just a little too strange when he sees Lewis lying around in a T-shirt and underwear. When Nolte leaves his wife at home alone (with De Niro stalking outside), Lange replies angrily, "What about a weapon, in case things get exciting around here?"

The primary intimacy in this movie is between De Niro and Lewis. Howe stated in his review, “To Nolte's horror, the white-trash jailbird coaxes her effortlessly into an erotic transformation.” In one of the most nail-biting scenes, De Niro (pretending to be a teacher) draws in Lewis to a theater in the school’s basement. He attracts her with a kindness that she doesn’t even receive at home. You could say that this is Scorsese’s view of the Big Bad Wolf.

There are moments of intense and sudden violence. A large part of a victim’s cheek is bitten off. At one of the climatic moments, Nolte’s family literally slips and slides in blood. The movie is also filled with severely amusing touches. When Lange calls De Niro repulsive, he responds, “I understand. I'm not your type.” When Nolte at first refuses to extreme revenge against De Niro, Joe Don Baker, who plays the hired detective, says, “The only thing excessive would be to gut him and eat his liver.”

Scorsese changes the tension and expresses the darkest suggestions at exciting, brief edited speed. The cat-and-mouse tensions are all building up to the epic conclusion in a houseboat in spinning water. With Scorsese at the helm, this isn’t just a final battle in a bad storm. It’s the awesome, soul-shattering turmoil of the Last Judgment.

Much like in “Taxi Driver,” where De Niro had a quote that he would forever be remembered for, in this film, he had another quote that was made famous: “Come out, come out wherever you are.” I would also give this film a 10 because it’s another one of my favorites. Stay tuned next week for the conclusion of “Scorsese/De Niro month.”

Note: I was just about to write this when I was called for a task that took a couple of hours, so I apologize.