Cape Fear

PLOT

Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) is a lawyer living in North Carolina with his wife Leigh (Jessica Lange) and teenage daughter Danielle (Juliette Lewis). Max Cady (Robert De Niro), a former client of his, is released from prison after 14 years. Cady was tried for statutory rape and battery of a 16-year-old girl and, appalled by the attack, Sam buried evidence of the victim's promiscuity and Cady's unawareness of her actual age, which might have lightened Cady's sentence or even secured his acquittal.

Bowden believes that Cady, who was illiterate at the time of his conviction, remains unaware of his purposefully botched defense. Unbeknownst to him, however, his former client is a naturally intelligent and single-minded psychopath; he learned how to read and studied law in prison, and even unsuccessfully appealed his own conviction several times. He tracks Sam down and begins to terrorize the Bowden family; he lurks near the property and the family dog is mysteriously killed. Sam attempts to have Cady arrested but the police have no evidence of a crime. After intentionally crossing paths with her in a bar, Cady rapes and beats County Courthouse clerk Lori nearly to death, who is in love with Sam. Despite Sam's advice, she refuses to press charges out of fear that their ongoing platonic flirtation become public, as well as unwillingness to be cross-examined and humiliated by her own colleagues. Sam hires a private investigator, Kersek, to follow Cady.

Cady approaches Danielle by impersonating her new drama teacher and feigning an unorthodox interest in her teenage angst. He lures her to the school theater, shares a joint with her, manipulates her libido and attraction to him and kisses her. Her parents find the joint in her schoolbook, and Danielle's coyness about the extent of Cady's seduction drives Sam to the point of desperation. He then agrees to Kersek's plan, which he had dismissed earlier, to have Cady beaten up. He also gives Cady a final warning, which Cady secretly tapes with a hidden recorder. Kersek's three hired thugs accost and beat Cady as Sam watches from afar, but Cady turns the tide on his attackers and viciously beats them instead. Cady then uses the recording of Sam's threat and an exaggerated display of his own injuries to file for a restraining order against Sam. Lee Heller (Cady’s lawyer) also petitions the ABA Ethics Committee for Sam's disbarment, thereby triggering a two-day emergency meeting in Raleigh.

Kersek anticipates Cady's intention to enter the Bowden house while Sam is in Raleigh; the family fakes Sam's departure and hides in the house, hoping that Cady will break in, so that he can be shot in self-defense. Cady kills the Bowden's housekeeper Graciela and dons her clothing before murdering Kersek by garroting him with a piano wire and shooting him with his own pistol. Horrified after discovering the bodies, Sam, Leigh, and Danielle flee to their houseboat docked upstate along the Cape Fear River.

Cady, who has followed the family, attacks Sam and prepares to rape Leigh and Danielle while making Sam watch. Danielle sprays Cady with lighter fluid as he lights a cigar, engulfing him in flames and causing him to jump off the boat. However, Cady clings to a rope and pulls himself back on board. As the boat is rocked by a violent thunderstorm, a badly burned and deranged Cady confronts Sam, putting him on a mock trial for his deliberate negligence 14 years ago. Despite Sam's insistence that Cady bragged about beating two prior rape charges and that his crime was too heinous for the promiscuity report to be taken into account, Cady berates him for failing to do his duty as a lawyer.

The storm eventually knocks Cady off his feet, allowing Sam to gain the upper hand once the women jump off the boat and make it to shore. Sam uses Cady's handcuffs to shackle Cady to the boat. When the boat hits a rock and is destroyed, the fight continues on shore, but a raging tide carries Cady away and he drowns speaking in tongues and singing the hymn "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand". Sam washes the blood from his hands before he rejoins Leigh and Danielle, who realizes that things will never be the same again for them.

CAST

Robert De Niro as Max Cady

Nick Nolte as Sam Bowden

Jessica Lange as Leigh Bowden

Juliette Lewis as Danielle Bowden

Joe Don Baker as Claude Kersek

Robert Mitchum as Lieutenant Elgart

Gregory Peck as Lee Heller

Illeana Douglas as Lori Davis

Fred Thompson as Tom Broadbent

Martin Balsam as Judge

Zully Montero as Graciela

Domenica Cameron-Scorsese as Danny's Girlfriend

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

a remake of the 1962 film of the same name which was based on John D. MacDonald's 1957 novel, The Executioners.