Cape Fear Full Movie Reviews

Full Movie Reviews

kimstir
kimstir
TV Extra

Rating of
2.5/4

One Aspect is More Relevant Today

kimstir - wrote on 06/21/2016

Slight Spoils...

I think this movie is might actually be even more relevant today than when it came out. I mean that in terms of the rape case Robert De Niro's character was sent to prison for (learn about it at the start of the movie). Nick Nolte's character sat on a report that suggested the victim was promiscuous, and Robert De Niro is mad about it because he knows that that report would have kept him out of jail. In addition, [SLIGHT SPOILER] when another chick gets raped later, she doesn’t want to press charges because she knows how the legal system will treat her in court (she was a bit promiscuous herself). Totally NOT how the legal system treats rape victims today. No way. We’ve grown so much. #progress

Besides all that soapbox stuff, I enjoyed the movie for the most …

Yojimbo
Yojimbo
Movie God

Rating of
1.5/4

"Cape Fear" by Yojimbo

Yojimbo - wrote on 05/05/2012

Brutal rapist Max Kady is released from prison after serving 14 years and sets about taking his revenge on the defense attorney who represented him. Martin Scorsese's remake of classic 1961 thriller came as a real surprise to me; I honestly did not believe he was capable of making something quite this BAD. If I did not know it was a Scorsese, I would have certainly pegged it as a Verhoeven or someone similar. It's schlocky, stupid and tackily directed, and full of ludicrous melodrama that borders on the absurd; in fact on more than one occasion, it looked more like a parody than a genuine thriller. If a character that is meant to be menacing is misjudged, they can often just appear laughable; Buffalo Bill was one example, and Max Kady is another. I was literally smirking half the time he …

MovieAddict
MovieAddict
Producer

Rating of
3/4

Cape Fear (1991)

MovieAddict - wrote on 01/16/2012

"Come out, come out wherever you are!"

A psychotic newly-released rapist (Max Cady) is stalking and intimidating a lawyer and his family, because he "buried" evidence, that could have gotten Cady off or at least had his sentence greatly reduced had it been admitted in court.

While in jail Cady educates himself and then uses that knowledge of the law to make life a living hell for his lawyer, Sam Bowden (played by Nick Nolte) his wife Leigh, (Jessica Lange), and then goes after his 15 year-old sexually curious daughter Danielle (played by a very young Juliette Lewis). The sadistic Cady`s body is tattooed with a lot of biblical quotations symbolizing his thirst for vengeance. He wants revenge and is willing to take a pound of flesh out of Bowden's family (or a mouthful as he does …

Ichabod Crane
Ichabod Crane
Movie God

Rating of
1.5/4

Somewhat thrilling at first, but problems turn up

Ichabod Crane - wrote on 10/26/2010

This film was semi effective for me the first time but it certainly loses all of its semi cheap thrills the second time around. They sometimes just come off as unintentionally funny like when De Niro dresses up as the maid. Many times many of the scenes simply do not hold up under any scrutiny, such as De Niro tape recording Nolte's threat. Did he always have his conversations recorded, did he know he was going to be attacked that time, it is a bit much. Also when he is attacked why honestly would he not just look past the dumpster. Than too many scenes go too far with Cady's invincibility, they simply do not villains from the nineties onward in any realistic way. De Niro keeps coming and talking even though he should have been dead a long time ago.

The angle of the daughter is too …

ryan
ryan
Director

Rating of
3.5/4

Settle the score

ryan - wrote on 05/23/2010

This new re-vamped version of Cape Fear is excellently done. Fourteen years ago is all Max Cady can think about once he's set free out of prison. He has a score to settle with Public defender Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte). This hatred has been festering in Max for well over a decade and in some aspects it's a justified hatred. I think anyone put in his shoes would feel the same way. That is if your lawyer who's job it was to defend you in court and do everything in their power to get you off the hook or at least try to reduce the time you had to spend in the can. This was not the case with Max Cady, he was denied this right, and that was all he saw it as. Bowden however, thought he was doing the world a favor by hiding evidence in favor of his clients innocence. The way Bowden saw it, …

mdtinney
mdtinney
Movie God

Rating of
4/4

Scorsese & DeNiro... A can't miss!!!!!

mdtinney - wrote on 08/12/2009

The 1962 movie version of "Cape Fear" was already a great and classic one. It was a movie that set the standards for most later thrillers and featured Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum still in their prime. How was a remake ever going to surpass the original? Martin Scorsese really pulled this off! He makes "Cape Fear" an haunting atmospheric thriller that still is one of THE best in its genre.
"Cape Fear" is a real psychological thriller. It doesn't rely on scares or anything like that but more on its atmosphere. It's a very insecure- and therefor also really an unpleasant atmosphere, since you just don't know what is going to happen next and what the Cady character actually tries to achieve. It's a real unpredictable character, that is capable of anything. You're just waiting for him to …

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