User reviews

I think we all begin a lot of reviews with, "This could've made a GREAT movie." A demented ex-con freshly sprung, a tidy suburban family his target. Revenge, retribution, manipulation. Marty's usual laying on of the Karo syrup. But unfortunately somewhere in Universal's high-rise a memorandum came down: everyone ham it up.

Nolte only speaks with eyebrows raised, Lange bitches her way through cigarettes, Lewis "Ohmagod's!" her way though her scenes, and Bobby D...well, he's on a whole other magic carpet. Affecting some sort of Cajun/Huckleberry Hound accent hybrid, he chomps fat cigars and cackles at random atrocities such as "Problem Child". And I want you to imagine the accent mentioned above. Now imagine it spouting brain-clanging religious rhetoric at top volume like he swallowed six bibles, and you have De Niro's schtick here. Most distracting of all, though, is his most OVERDONE use of the "De Niro face" he's so lampooned for. Eyes squinting, forehead crinkled, lips curled. Crimany, Bob, you looked like Plastic Man.

The story apparently began off-screen 14 years earlier, when Nolte was unable to spare De Niro time in the bighouse for various assaults. Upon release, he feels Nolte's misrep of him back then warrants the terrorizing of he and his kin. And we're supposed to give De Niro's character a slight pass because Nolte withheld information that might've shortened his sentence. De Niro being one of these criminals who, despite being guilty of unspeakable acts, feels his lack of freedom justifies continuing such acts on the outside. Mmm-kay.

He goes after Notle's near-mistress (in a scene some may want to turn away from), his wife, his daughter, the family dog, ya know. Which is one of the shortcomings of Wesley Strick's screenplay: utter predictability. As each of De Niro's harassments becomes more gruesome, you can pretty much call the rest of the action before it happens. Strick isn't to be totally discredited, as he manages a few compelling dialogue-driven moments (De Niro and Lewis' seedy exchange in an empty theater is the film's best scene), but mostly it's all over-cranked. Scorsese's cartoonish photographic approach comes off as forced, not to mention the HORRIBLY outdated re-worked Bernard Hermann score (I kept waiting for the Wolf Man to show up with a genetically enlarged tarantula).

Thus we arrive at the comedic portion of the flick. Unintentionally comedic, that is. You know those scenes where something graphically horrific is happening, but you can't help but snicker out of sight of others? You'll do it here. Nolte and Lange squawking about infidelity, De Niro's thumb-flirting, he cross-dressing, and a kitchen slip on a certain substance that has to be seen to believed. And Bob's infernal, incessant, CONSTANT, mind-damaging, no-end-in sight blowhard ramblings of all the "philosophy" he disovered in prison. I wanted him killed to shut him up more than to save this annoying family.

I always hate to borrow thoughts from other reviewers, but here it's necessary. This really *is* Scorsese's version of Freddy Krueger. The manner in which De Niro relishes, speaks, stalks, withstands pain, right down to his one-liners, is vintage Freddy. Upon being scalded by a pot of thrown water: "You trying' to offer sumpin' hot?" Please. And that's just one example.

Unless you were a fan of the original 1962 flick and want a thrill out of seeing Balsam, Peck, and Mitchum nearly 30 years later (or want a serious head-shaking film experience), avoid a trip to the Cape.

Every character in this movie is a moron, their reasoning, actions, and choices are all moronic. As the movie went on I started to hate the characters more and more. I just wanted the stupidity to end.

Some movies can be seen many years after they came out. Some examples are: Gone With the Wind, The Sting, The Godfather and many more! But Cape Fear is not on that list! The movie lets you realize how much Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis, Robert de Niro and Nick Nolte did develop as actors in the following years and the same goes especially for director Martin Scorsese. The movie must have been a stunner in 1991 but in 2020 you should skip it! Time has outrun it.

Best regards Derfel

I do not care if Scorsese directed Goodfellas, The Departed, Casino, The Taxi Driver and so on. Those are fantastic movies. This one is rubbish. The only positive thing is that De Niro delivers. Sam Bowden (Nick Nolti) is probably the most stupid protagonist in the history of stupid protagonists. I thought lawyers were supposed to be cunning. Not in this movie. In this movie you have Max Cady who is a superman of some sort, an illiterate ex-con who became an evil mastermind in 14 years. Sam Bowden was so stupid that by the end of the movie I was rooting for Max Cady. Do not waste your time on this one.

The original can't be any worse I reckon?

Martin Scorsese has directed masterpieces! Maybe this in not one of them. Acting was fine, but maybe everything was too much.

More of a comedy than a thriller... the plot is laughable and with the extremely dated cinematography and special effects, kids these days would prob think it's meant to be a comedy.

Martin Scorese's career has been all over the place and Cape Fear is one of his worst efforts.

The movie: This suspense-horror styled movie is truly an over-the-top sinister cat and mouse chase. The film centers around a mysterious felon (De Niro) who was recently released from a long prison stint. The felon seeks out revenge on his public defendant lawyer from 14 years ago; whom he believes buried key info that led to him being convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl.

Opinion: This movie should have been excellent by all accounts - Scorsese directing, De Niro acting as a vengeful criminal, and the veteran actor Nolte anchoring down the cast as the family man lawyer. Simply put, it isn't excellent. De Niro's character is vile, disturbing, and poorly acted. The action sequences are far too over-the-top and ultimately derail the plot.

Final Thoughts: Considering the critical acclaim and Oscar nominees, this movie is quite a disappointment. The acting seems forced from top-to-bottom and the key scenes are just too unpleasant to enjoy. The fast-paced tone gives you just enough to watch to the end.. but not much more.

Not Scorsese's best by any stretch. This film is not a thriller, but a about a killer and not a very good one at that. Trying so hard to be Hitchcock, it left me wondering why he bothered to remake this at all. Uncomfortable, bad acting and script, storylines that made no sense, drawn out 'action' that lasted way longer than needed. Boring. Avoid!

I love the psychological thriller genre. I thought this would be a hidden gem, a case study of the criminally insane. And who better to play the role than Deniro.

I was mistaken. It had its good parts. But Deniro wasn't evil or interesting enough to pull it off. After all, a movie like this is only special for its villains.

Skip it

4 stars

I noticed several reviews used the word 'classic' when talking about this 1991 movie. Well, I am glad they enjoyed it, though even if it's a very good film, I am loathe to call any film a classic if it's a remake...one of several, actually, of the 1962 film. In about 95% of the movies that have been remade, the first is better...if only because it has originality. If an original film is seriously flawed and the remake corrects this, then, perhaps it could be considered a classic. But the old Gregory Peck/Robert Mitchum version was an exceptional film...perhaps even a classic. So why did I watch this remake when I usually hate remakes? Well, like the original, Robert Mitchum is in this one (as is Gregory Peck) and I recently decided to try seeing all his films....and I am nearly there.

As I watched "Cape Fear" I noticed that the screenplay was not identical to the original...that's clearly a plus. In this case, the crazed ex-con, Max Cady (Robert De Niro), is angry because his defense attorney (Nick Nolte) apparently deliberately tanked the case that sent him to prison many years ago. As for Sam Bowden (Nolte), he was horrified by the rape that Cady committed and didn't feel terribly inclined to defend him as well as he might have...making him different than the lawyer in the original...who was simply an innocent man harassed by evil. Here, it's evil harassing a morally ambiguous man and the people (and dog) he loved. The film also is quite different from the original because it's a lot more violent and sexual....disturbingly so. In fact, I found the sexual violence too intense and it showed way too much for my taste. The attack on Illeana Douglas' character was more like rape porn than a drama...and I strongly recommend you think twice about seeing the film if you've been a victim of sexual assault.

Overall, a film that started off well enough but became so distastefully violent and gross that I finally just turned the movie off as I didn't find it entertaining...just cruel.

A poor Hitchcock experience. The acting is over the top, strange, and often just bad. The storyline doesn't even make sense much of the time and there's some gross male gaze uncomfortable juxtaposing with the point of the movie, undercutting the entire endeavour. It is good as sustaining suspense with the jump cuts and has a great soundtrack, though. But ultimately has nothing of substance or interest to convey.

I'm a fan of Martin Scorsese's movies, but certainly not all of them, and this one has to be one of his worst. This movie was so bad that it was basically a parody of the original so much so that my friend and I were howling with laughter at all of the ridiculous camera movements which were as over the top as the acting. Seriously, Scorsese must have been on drugs to make something so ridiculous. It was like a wacky Tim Burton version of Cape Fear. The original was very good and currently has a 7.7 rating while this one has a 7.3? Whaaat?? There is no way whatsoever that this movie can be rated any higher than 4, out of pity. For people who really don't care one way or another if a movie is good or bad, they're just looking to waste some time or for some brainless entertainment, yeah, go for it, watch it, but if you're a movie buff or connoisseur you'll either have a good laugh, which is worth something after all, or find yourself cringing and imagining the mental state Scorsese had to have been in to direct something like this.

I ask myself this question in the middle of watching this movie and the question troubled me so much that I couldn't finish watching it.

The story is saying that Max was almost illiteral when he was put into the prison, and learned the law in the prison and started to know that the lawyer had cheated him, according the the law he could serve much less time or even no time in prison. I understand that Max must hate the lawyer, but then why didn't he call it out and ask for a repeal? Is there no chance for the prisoners to do anything about his case?

Even if there are explanations in the movie, I wouldn't be convinced and I think the author just wanted Max to stay in prison 14 years and come out to revenge, because the story is written like that?