Martin Scorsese
Cape Fear - Il Promontorio Della Paura

One night last summer, after a couple of beers with some friends on the beach, I was heading home when, on the narrow, cramped, and not at all lit road connecting the sea to the city, there was a guy who had comfortably parked his car on the side of the road to pee, near, of all things, a curve.

Obviously, the situation posed a high potential for an accident, due to the bad habits of some people who think they own the world and, by virtue of such power granted by God himself in person, decide calmly to park wherever they want, disregarding everything and everyone (how many times have you been forced to honk your horn for entire minutes because you were "trapped" by a double-parked car?).

Well, I noticed the danger at the last moment and managed to avoid it, not without difficulty. Naturally, in a completely irrational way and from the bottom of my heart, I spontaneously raised my hand and said, "What an asshole." The brute in question, of whom I could glimpse, at a later moment, his large figure and some tattoos on his arms and shoulders, unfortunately, did not take my gesture with sportsmanship, and, as I could see from the mirror, he quickly got into his car, turned on the engine, and sped off. Soon after, a chase began, with my friend on my tail flashing his lights constantly to urge me to stop and, in his view, resolve the matter between men.

"Like hell," I thought, also recalling the fact that a guy not long before, in the same area, in a more or less similar situation, got out of his car only to be subsequently taken to the emergency room. Despite doing my utmost to shake him off, there was simply no way; he was always behind me flashing his lights. This went on for about thirty kilometers. In the end, fortunately, my pursuer gave up and let me go.

Well, this grotesque incident reminded me of "Cape Fear," in which I, of course, donned the role of Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) and my friend that of Max Cady (Bob De Niro).

A thriller by Scorsese, well acted with stellar actors like Jessica Lange, the adolescent Juliette Lewis who would, after a few years, become the stunner we all know, the previously mentioned Nolte and De Niro, Gregory Peck, and Robert Mitchum to mark continuity with the earlier film from the 60s. The plot itself is quite predictable and it's needless to say that Scorsese has done much better. But, in the end, the movie is watchable, mainly due to Bob's performance with his sardonic smile and his sadistic obsession with his former attorney and his family.

And then again, there must be a reason why still today, after having lived through that chilling experience, my recurring nightmare is finding myself face to face with my potential assailant who, mockingly, shows me a tattooed scale on his back and the words "truth" and "justice" which reveal to me, in a not-too-subtle way, that soon I will be subjected to his personal concept of justice.