When I saw this 1953 classic was being remade, I was sorta interested, then immediately repulsed by the movie posters showing big explosions and guns blazing. Are you kidding me? The original is nail-bitingly suspenseful for the exact opposite. It proves the filmmaker can keep us on the edge of our sets with a story about a bunch of trucks that can't go any faster than 15 mph.

About my title, no Hitchcock didn't have anything to do with the original. But Hitchcock was very much a contemporary/competitor of the French filmmaker HG Clouzot who did the original Wages of Fear. Both filmmakers were very similar in style, content and especially presentation: slow, simmering suspense without any real release until the final scenes.

I haven't seen this remake, but the reviews I've read seem to confirm my fears. This is your basic forgettable popcorn flick with lots of loud things that go boom. Kinda like remaking 2001 A Space Odyssey with a bunch of laser guns and warp speed.

But I'm not necessarily blaming the filmmaker. I personally think, regarding cinema, audiences are leading the art form. Mindless fare is what audiences demand today--maybe as an escape from thinking about real life--and studios are just filling that demand. Hitchcockian suspense is dead; or even if it still exists in obscure indie films it's underappreciated by today's audiences who have been nurtured on news feeds of mayhem and mass murder with ADHD editing. A thoughtful slow-burn like the original Wages of Fear is now so unpalatable & unrealistic that kids wouldn't be able to keep their eyes open past the opening credits.

It's the result of society's 21st century tempo. We're all running at a higher clock speed these days. The average human can't downshift to 15 mph. Warp speed, HAL. I'm sorry Dave I can't do that.