News culture This action film outrageously dominates Netflix, yet the critics are soaring it and the spectators are even worse

Culture news This action film outrageously dominates Netflix, yet the critics are soaring it and the spectators are even worse

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Adapted from the eponymous novel written by Georges Arnaud in 1949, Wages of Fear tells the story of four adventurers in Central America who decide to take part in a trip that will perhaps be the last of their lives. Indeed, they must bring two trucks loaded with nitroglycerin to safety on dangerous roads in order to extinguish a fire in an oil well. The reward ? A large sum of money if they succeed in the mission.

The plan to do a reboot of Wages of Fear is not new. In 1977, William Friedkin (the director of The Exorcist) had already brought the work of Henri-Georges Clouzot up to date. Quite a challenge when we know that the original film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953. Unfortunately, this proposal did not meet with its audience and was a failure with only 9 million dollars in revenue in the world. However, it has since acquired a certain reputation, to the point that Stephen King himself considers it to be his favorite film of all time.

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A result not so explosive, but which dominates

Directed by Julien Leclercq (La Terre et le sang), the “new” Wages of Fear brings together Franck Gastambide, Sofiane Zermani, Ana Girardot and Alban Lenoir. “Bringing together these talents around the reboot of such a film, for worldwide distribution with Netflix, requires me to put all my heart and all my guts into it.” declared Julien Leclercq in a press release when the film was announced. What is certain is that despite all his good intentions, the director has not necessarily convinced the critics with his new work. Le Point believes that the director’s expertise saves the film “complete failure”, while Télérama wonders what the point of such a remake is, even if it is not “the predicted disaster”. Ouest France is more negative, writing that from the first minutes, “we measure everything that is wrong”. “Nothing to get excited about, but not really anything to have fun with either. Wait, what were we talking about again?” concludes Ecran Large.

On Allociné, spectators hit the film even harder, giving it an average of 1.4/5. Despite extremely cautious feedback from both the specialist press and spectators, Wages of Fear is currently in first place among the most watched films in France, ahead of M3GAN, Irish Wish and The Lady and the Dragon.. It remains to be seen how long he will manage to stay in the enviable places in the rankings.