20 Great Movie Remakes With One Miscast Role

Given how firmly he put his stamp on the material, it can be easy to forget that Martin Scorsese’s psychological thriller Cape Fear is a remake of the 1962 J. Lee Thompson film. Scorsese took the basic elements of that picture and turned it up to 11, wrenching it forward into a very contemporary feeling early '90s, and placing his golden boy Robert De Niro in the centre of it to play against type as the tattooed psychopath Max Cady.

Cady has just got out of the joint for r*pe and battery of a 16-year-old girl, and tracks down his clean-as-a-whistle public defender Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte), who he believes threw his case intentionally. Cady inserts himself into Bowden’s life and uses what he’s learned about law and procedure while in prison to make Sam’s life a nightmare, while simultaneously making moves on his teenage daughter Dani (Juliette Lewis).

Now, De Niro is way, waaay OTT here, but it works for the character and for the sinister edge Scorsese creates throughout the film. Nolte, however, is never quite right. The problem is that Nolte was used to playing tough guys - frequently lawmen with a dark side. The power balance of the scenes between him and De Niro never feels bang on, and although he doesn’t derail the film, Nick Nolte is just not right as the family man public defender.