Cape Fear (1991)

Cape Fear (1991)

Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro

The film is about Max Cady, an ex-convict who finds out that the lawyer who defended him hid an important piece of evidence which would have saved him years in prison. He’s out to get the lawyer. But there’s a catch. The case was about Max brutally raping a woman, so the lawyer purposefully hid that piece of evidence about the victim being promiscuous because he thought Cady deserved to go to jail. So the lawyer’s a good guy. Robert De Niro is absolutely menacing as Max Cady, especially because of his abilities. He has the abilities to charm women, and the scene where he talks to the lawyer’s daughter who is 15 and kisses her, had me gasping. That entire scene was beautifully constructed. After the girl gets to know that he’s Max Cady, she doesn’t flee the scene but her body turns away from him and she keeps gazing at the exit and that is enough to convey that she’s uncomfortable. That’s how they build tension in that scene.

What I love about the film is, it gets into the story right off the bat without beating around the bush. And it almost plays out like a survival thriller, but also like a character study of a menacing guy. Although I felt that the whole ending, where he almost rapes the lawyer’s wife, would have been more shocking if Max Cady didn’t rape the lawyer’s secretary. But because of the brutality of that scene, the film successfully carried tension throughout the film. It goes by Hitchcock’s bomb theory – the way a bomb suddenly going off can just shock the audience for a bit but if they know that there’s a bomb under the table, there’s tension throughout. So it worked like that. I loved the ending, but I didn’t get why it was set in that ship. It could’ve been set in his house too, that would’ve brought in even more tension because nothing can save at that point. De Niro is so charming that at times, I was rooting for him and I love films that make me hate myself for rooting for bad guys.