The first act is a bit choppy, where there’s some hard to hear exposition and some questionable motives for the main players. Also, Wikipedia says that Friedkin wanted to "write a real movie about what [he] thought was the reality of Latin America and the presence of foreigners there today (1977),” which I don’t really know what he’s getting at there and I kind of don’t want to know. All that said, once all the setup is out of the way, this becomes one of the most nerve wracking things I’ve ever seen. The set pieces throughout are masterpieces of direction, sound design, pacing, and editing. The score by Tangerine Dream that comes up at certain moments rocks my shit so god damn hard. This thing is so good looking in its grime and humid density. There are so many large sections of pure cinematic storytelling that I instantly knew that this will go down as one of my favorite expressions of great filmmaking.