Synopsis
In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.
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Cast
- Yves MontandMario Livi
- Charles VanelMr. Jo
- Peter van EyckBimba
- Folco LulliLuigi
- Véra ClouzotLinda
- Antonio CentaCamp Chief
- Jo DestHans Smerloff
- Darío MorenoPepito Hernandez
- William TubbsBill O'Brien
- Darling LégitimusRosa
Recommendations
- 100
Time Out
Here's where it's easiest to see Clouzot's advantage over his more famous peer, as he combines nail-biting action scenes - calibrated to the millimeter - with a Hawksian command of earthy performances. - 100
Chicago Sun-Times
The film's extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema. - 100
ReelViews
Wages of Fear is the kind of motion picture for which commonplace phrases like "white-knuckle tension ride" have been coined. - 100
TV Guide Magazine
Excellent, but nasty stuff. - 100
The A.V. Club
Deriving endless anxiety from brawny men moving as gingerly as possible, it’s a riveting anti-action movie, one of the most memorable high-concept pictures ever made in Europe. - 80
Washington Post
A precursor of The Wild Bunch, it is an expertly directed, personally felt film. - 78
Austin Chronicle
This film, the inspiration for the less successful Sorcerer, is a textbook case of how to handle suspense. It has also been called the cruelest movie ever made and it certainly earns that title by the film's end. - 75
Slant Magazine
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear now seems much less like Salt of the Earth-as-a-potboiler and a lot more like the spiritual godfather to every testosterone-fueled thrill ride since.
