Scorsese and screenwriter Wesley Strick follow closely the outlines of J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 original: a vengeance-minded ex-con named Max Cady (Robert De Niro), sprung from 14 years in jail for sexual assault, returns to a sunny North Carolina town to terrorize a lawyer, Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte), and his family. But where the original Robert Mitchum/Gregory Peck thriller was a black-and-white showdown of pure low-rent evil versus impeccable middle-class virtue, Scorsese has typically muddied the moral waters by giving Sam Bowden’s family its own share of guilty secrets. Peck’s almost insufferably upright Bowden had been a witness who testified against Cady; Nolte’s Bowden was his lawyer, who suppressed evidence that might have gotten his guilty client graphic-designer wife (Jessica Lange) now seethes with resentment at his infidelities. And their 15-year-old daughter Danny–spectacularly well played by Juliette Lewis–has become a complex, angry girl/woman who is grappling with her budding sexuality.
But it is De Niro–his body covered with tattoos and the tackiest wardrobe in the New South–who dominates the film with his lip-smacking, blackly comic and terrifying portrayal of psychopathic self-righteousness. De Niro’s character is a Nietzschean superman disguised as a cigar-smoking Pentecostal sleazebucket. He has the ability to transform himself, like Satan himself, into the shape of his enemy’s worst fear or desire. He can outsmart Sam at his own lawyerly games and, in the movie’s best, most disturbing (and quietest) scene, seduce Danny by insinuating himself into her divided, rebellious heart. Cady’s no longer a realistic figure but a white-trash Wrath of God.
Still, though Scorsese adds nifty layers of complexity to the genre, he’s not out to transcend it, and he’s not above resorting to the commonest horror-movie ploys. There’s a danger in expecting too much from “Cape Fear.” It gives you a pumped-up, thrill-happy ride (assuming you have a stomach for violent pulp) but it doesn’t linger in the mind as Scorsese’s richest movies do. It’s a swell B movie dressed in haute cinematic couture.
title: “The Horror The Horror” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-03” author: “Alexandra Lanzo”
Soon two of the African soldiers burst into the house where 16-year-old Mukunda was making palm beer with his father, Marselle. They accused Marselle of supporting rebel leader Laurent Kabila. Ignoring his denials, they dragged him to a shady spot where three other villagers were under guard. As Mukunda watched from hiding, Colonel Yugo took up a machine gun and sprayed the four men with bullets. Next he grabbed a knife and stabbed their lifeless bodies, pounding at them maniacally. Then he calmly walked away, climbed into his white Toyota Land Cruiser and roared off down the road.
The area around Bayanguna is dotted with fresh mass graves containing at least 21 corpses. Villagers told NEWSWEEK that all of them were victims of Colonel Yugo, who seemed to enjoy slaughtering innocent prisoners with his own hands. By last week, Kisangani had fallen to the rebels, and Colonel Yugo was gone. Some villagers said they saw him leaving by boat down the Congo River. Others said he was regrouping his forces. But Colonel Yugo’s war seemed to be nearly over. The government of Zaire had all but collapsed. Even the return late last week of the country’s cancer-stricken dictator, Mobuto Sese Seko, did not stop thousands of people–including some of Mobutu’s relatives–from fleeing Kinshasa, the increasingly chaotic capital. Everyone there seemed to be waiting for Laurent Kabila. ““He’s like Christ,’’ said one resident, AndrE LusE. ““We don’t know where he will come from or when he will come, but he will come.''
Things keep getting weirder in Zaire. Opposition political leaders, loathed by Kabila, proclaimed themselves his allies. Gen. Mahele Lioko, Zaire’s chief of staff, said his troops would defeat the rebels–and then publicly begged them not to riot. And when Mobutu, 66, returned from his luxurious sickbed on the French Riviera, the welcoming committee was sent away from the airport without a glimpse of him, setting off more speculation about his physical decline. ““He’s extremely ill,’’ said an informed source. And in case foreigners have to be evacuated, the United States ordered more than 200 troops to nearby Congo and Gabon to prepare the logistics. If needed, two Marine Corps vessels could reach waters off Zaire this week.
It was unclear what Kabila would do if, as he promises, he marches into Kinshasa by June. Until six months ago, when Rwanda and Uganda started to support him, Kabila was little known. His ideology is a strange amalgam of anarchy, socialism and free-market communism. And in the areas he rules, ethnic tensions are rife; residents say members of the Tutsi tribe get all the good government jobs. Kinshasans say they don’t care. ““Of course, we don’t know what [Kabila] will do,’’ admits TimothE Zingawazinga, a 23-year-old student. ““First we’ll bring down the regime, then we’ll see what happens.''
Mobutu called for a truce, to be followed by negotiations with the rebels. ““We negotiate first,’’ Kabila replied in Kisangani, unwilling to give his enemy any respite. Zaire’s political and business elites still supported the dictator. ““Kabila cannot swallow Zaire whole,’’ one wealthy businessman said during a poolside lunch at his home in Kinshasa. He was convinced that the French-trained General Mahele would not allow a coup or looting. But just in case, he was sending his family on holiday in Belgium and hiring 15 national guardsmen to protect his home and business.
