White knuckles, black heart. Henri-Georges Clouzot's incendiary thriller might skate perilously close to misanthropy, but 50 years on it's lost none of its nervy twitch and thwack. Set in some godforsaken latino shanty town, it's the story of four desperados who must truck two volatile loads of nitroglycerine cross-country to extinguish a flaming oil field (it works, apparently). Predicament? Go over 40 mph and the trucks go bang. A genre masterclass in pressure-cooker tremors, it makes Speed look like a runaway skateboard.
DVD Extras:
Trailer, stills gallery, star biogs.Bit souring, this. A smeary print dulls Clouzot's parched black and whites, the gallery's perfunctory, the commentary non-existent. Yes, one of the best action movies ever made, but the package lacks.
