The Ellroy Boys discuss William Friedkin's bold existentialist opus, Sorcerer(1977), a nihilistic meditation on fate and a reimagining of Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear (1953). Four men from four different worlds find themselves in a hellish petroleum company town, somewhere in the jungles of Guatemala. They're all outlaws, men with treacherous pasts, all living on borrowed time. When a rebel group blows up one of the local wells, the company offers money to whomever can transport unstable nitro glycerine through the brutal, unforgiving terrain, in order to stop the blaze. This money presents our heroes with a way out of purgatory, a chance to escape. Sorcerer is arguably Friedkin's greatest film, despite it being notoriously maligned by critics and a total bomb at the box office. Nonetheless, it's resurgence has been significant and it continues to be venerated by all kinds of cinema enthusiasts. Today, the boys are joined by @Howlingmutantt & @CultWineGrinch for a celebratory analysis of the film and it's impact. Nothing is off the table and everyone gets a little lost in the weeds trying to put their finger on what makes this movie so remarkable, watchable, and immersive.

Produced by @goldpny