Four men, broke and desperate to get out of an isolated Central American town, accept a suicide mission: drive two trucks full of nitroglycerine to an oil well fire 300 miles away. The tension is high as the trucks gingerly negotiate the difficult, mountainous road and other obstacles. But the movie is more than just a thriller, it shows the dusty, miserable town, and it develops the characters in an unusually long setup. The advantage of these introductory acts is that when the tension comes, you really know each character and his motives. All in all, a great, tense film. (In French, Spanish, and English)
Wages of Fear
***1/2published September 4, 2000