Cape Fear review: Amy Adams and Javier Bardems revival is a brutal summer thriller

Apple’s “Cape Fear” revival is slick, stylish — and brutal. It’s a star-studded crime drama with standout performances from Amy Adams, Patrick Wilson, and Javier Bardem. It’s also hard to see why this show exists, when there were two famous earlier “Cape Fear” movies – do we need a third version? But, if you ignore that element, if you just want a sun-drenched, blood-soaked thriller series, it’s a compelling watch. “Cape Fear” follows affluent lawyer couple, Tom (Wilson) and Anna Bowden (Adams), who live in Savannah, Georgia, with their teen son and daughter. Their lives get shaken up when Anna’s former client, Max Cady (Bardem), gets released from prison after 17 years.It becomes a hot news item; he’s dubbed America’s “most famous exoneree.”Years ago, Cady pleaded guilty to murdering his pregnant wife.

Now that he’s apparently been deemed innocent – his mistress claimed that she did the grisly crime – the public sentiment is turning against Anna, who was his lawyer at the time. To make matters look worse for her, Tom was the prosecutor who put Max in prison, and Anna and Tom got together during the trial. A newly freed Cady is out for revenge on the couple. The series is the third iteration of this story. Every version of the plot follows Cady, an ex con out to menace Bowden, the lawyer who he blames for his incarceration.It started as a 1957 novel (called “The Executioners”). Then, it was adapted into the first “Cape Fear,” a 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck as Bowden, and Robert Mitchum as Cady. In the movie, Cady was a psycho and Bowden was a good guy.The most famous version is the 1991 “Cape Fear” from Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro as Cady, and Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, and Juliette Lewis as members of the Bowden family. In this movie, Cady was also a madman, but Bowden was more morally grey.Scorsese is involved in this series as an exec producer, and so is Steven Spielberg (who also ...