Cape Fear (1991)

• Directed by Martin Scorsese
• November 15, 1991
• Based on the 1957 novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald and 1962 screenplay by James R. Webb

A convicted rapist seeks revenge on a former public defender that he blames for his 14-year imprisonment.

As remakes go, this one isn’t bad. In fact, Cape Fear 1991 is rather good. I won’t call it better than the original, but Scorsese certainly does more right with his version than he does wrong which is the inverse of what normally happens with remakes.

While there were fewer limitations on what could and could not be done when this version was made, I feel the original benefited largely from the limitations of the time in which it was made. I’m talking about the things they were and were not allowed to do because of film sensors. With the original Cape Fear they could not be nearly as overt as you can be today or back in 1991 when this film came out. This forced creativity in communicating the villain’s evil.

Here Max Cady (Robert De Niro) is certainly much more violent and rather than imply rape they come right out and say that is what landed him in prison. In comparison to Mitchum, Robert De Niro as Max Cady is much more of a brutal thug while Mitchum was as an understated and relatively clean-cut individual. He looked safe but definitely was not. Just looking at De Niro’s Cady you know he is a dangerous man and as Mitchum’s character of Lt. Elgart says in his part you don’t know whether to look at him or read him as De Niro is covered head to toe in tattoos.

Robert Mitchum isn’t the only star of the original film to make an appearance in Cape Fear 1991. Martin Balsam shows up as a judge and the great Gregory Peck makes a brief appearance as Max Cady’s lawyer Lee Heller. Rather than simply slip them in Scorsese made a point of highlighting these individuals. The way the camera functioned when they first came on was essentially Scorsese pointing and shouting, “Look who I got to show up in a cameo!” I’m not against having stars of previous works appear in remakes but I do prefer a little more subtlety in my presentations.

What this movie gets wrong is they make Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) much less of a good guy than he was in the first one. In fact, he’s kind of shitty here. Prior to the events of the film, he’s had at least one affair and he seems to be engaging in an emotional affair with Lori Davis (Illeana Douglas) who is a clerk at the local courthouse.

His wife Leigh (Jessica Lange) is still (justifiably) angry over the affair to the point you are trying to figure out why she is still married. Their daughter Danielle (Juliette Lewis) is not the unrealistically clean-cut daughter of the first film but a bit of a snotball that holds a grudge against both parents. Such a fragile unit sounds like easy pickings for a determined individual seeking vengeance.

Cape Fear 1991 is about 30 minutes more runtime than the original film give or take and some of that extra is unnecessary. We know Cady got released from prison. I don’t think we need to actually see him leave the prison. And then there was showing that the mother worked in marketing which had no impact on the story. I think a mention here or there of her having to go to work would’ve been more than enough without giving her an actual job and showing her laboring. The only person whose job mattered to the narrative was the father’s.

Having said all that, this is a remake that you can see the connection to the original yet manages to stand completely on its own. It takes the original screenplay and with some tweaks and adjustment brings it into the time in which this was made. It modernizes the story without losing it.

This movie is tense and exciting and most importantly, intelligent. Much like the original, Cady is a smart and crafty individual who is manipulating the law to his own ends. He knows how to terrorize and intimidate and accomplish his plan yet stay well within his rights. He brings himself right up to the edge of breaking the law without actually breaking it. And the movie never takes the lazy way out with stupid decisions made on the part of the characters that defies how those characters are set up just to move things forward.

But is it good? Yes. This version of Cape Fear gets much more right than it gets wrong. It holds you with a story and intelligent characters and just fantastic performances. It’s well directed and a nice update of the script.

Cape Fear 1991 is something I definitely recommend. It’s not a weak imitation, nor is it something that is a complete bastardization of the concept. It’s a film that stands on its own, yet clearly has connections to the original. Despite my own issues, I highly recommend this one.