The Wages of Fear (1955)

To me, this movie is perfection.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Just watched this out of date, over acted piece of utter nonsense. What on Earth are all these other reviews talking about? Did we watch the same movie?There are "real" classics out there, one's from the same period that dated well, showed the period and the issues of the day and dealt with them in a real and honest way...and then there these are "arty" classics that just go and over do the story, the dialogue and the characters to...well, I don't know why they do it but I can say that I don't get why they do "it". This must be an arty classics because I just didn't get "it" and I don't understand the people that have watched this in the last 40 years and pretended to get "it" as well. There is nothing real about this movie, the story is passable, okay, but there is no insight into the time or place of the movie, the dialogue is plain ridiculous, and the casting is terrible...(did anyone look at, and understand, who/what Linda's character was supposed to be in the first 5 minutes of the movie? She was badly cast and then given a terrible role to play on top of that). Vanel's transition from tough old street thug to corny coward was...well, it was hilarious actually (that was a source of a few laughs, truth be told). I think only O'Brien Luigi and Bimba are well played and we get saved the silly dialogue of the others with these characters. Mario was...such a shallow and repulsive character to me that I won't even go into how out-dated this kind of "hero" is in this day and age. Who should want to watch this movie? Those that want to see what being "cool" meant to a man in the 50's and how women (and a really beautiful one at that) where/should be treated by such macho men like Mario (this is a real women beater's showcase here). All in all a rubbish movie and if I could have those two and a half hours back I would surely ask.

The first hour is so boring, the film goes nowhere. It is demeaning to women at times. The actions starts too late but holds your attention once it does. Most people including the protagonist are evil in this one and ends appropriately. Overall a letdown.

In a decrepit South American village, four men are hired to transport an urgent nitroglycerine shipment without the equipment that would make it safe. Over the top acting is the worst kind of acting and this movie has that with close ups and just people feeling not that natural but also just a story that isn't that good to begin with as a whole. Le Salaire De La Peur is once again a movie that shouldn't be on this list but somehow we must put up with it cause IMDb takes the garbage and leaves the gold behind as it always has been doing i guess....sad... (0/10)

Frenchmen Mario and Jo, German Bimba and Italian Luigi are stuck in the isolated town of Las Piedras. Surrounded by desert, the town is linked to the outside world only by a small airport, but the airfare is beyond the means of the men. There is little opportunity for employment aside from the American corporation that dominates the town, Southern Oil Company (SOC), which operates the nearby oil fields and owns a walled compound within the town. SOC is suspected of unethical practices such as exploiting local workers and taking the law into its own hands, but the townspeople's dependence upon it is such that they suffer in silence.Mario is a sarcastic Corsican playboy, who treats his devoted lover, Linda, with disdain. Jo is an aging ex-gangster who just recently found himself stranded in the town. Bimba is an intense, quiet individual whose father was murdered by the Nazis, and who himself worked for three years in a salt mine. Luigi, Mario's roommate, is a jovial, hardworking individual, who has just learned that he is dying from cement dust in his lungs. Mario befriends Jo due to their common background of having lived in Paris, but a rift develops between Jo and the other cantina regulars because of his combative, arrogant personality.