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Rating:  - Nautical Juggernaut
Richard Lester's 1974 thriller JUGGERNAUT has often lumped together with the "disaster films" of the era. I trust it's not too much of a spoiler to say that it would be more accurately termed a "disaster narrowly avoided" film. Come to think of it, what's WRONG with calling it a plain old "thriller." "Disaster film" has always implied hundreds, even thousands dead or maimed. In a movie like THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE--so emblematic of the genre--a mere handful of survivors live to tell the tale. The body count in JUGGERNAUT is substantially less. The tension, however, is actually higher.
For viewers in the new millennium, a film JUGGERNAUT may even hit harder than a "forces of nature" or "failure of technology" type disaster flick from almost 40 years ago. The film revolves around an act of terrorism, and even if this particular perp's objective is plain old extortion, and NOT some twisted ideology, he proves just as cold and calculating as any brand of political terrorist familiar to us today.
And, as it turns out, he feels just as aggrieved, and am I alone in sensing that the filmmakers seem to demonstrate something like sympathy for the would-be extortionist's plight. I really don't want to go into great detail and once again be the spoiler I am wont to be. So let me just say that there's a brief, but fascinating moment in which one of the main characters hurls a version of the then still popular bromide that society itself may be at least somewhat to blame. 1974 might well be the last time a scriptwriter could get away with that one. In fact, had the film been an American (and not a British) production, that kind of 60s sentiment would probably not have been articulated at all. The Nixon/Agnew "Silent Majority" years had pretty much put the kibosh on all that kind of thinking.
Of course, all Lester and his writers are really saying is that sometimes heinous acts are, at least on some level, comprehensible. We can understand motives, even when we are appropriately appalled by the crime. Heck even we Americans are at least THAT sophisticated.
It's actually a bit frustrating in fact that we never really get to know what makes this mad bomber, uh, tick. But then, the filmmakers admittedly have a fine line to tread. They don't want to tip their hand plot-wise. On the other hand, when we do finally find out who the villain is, his psychological and personal history are presented all too hastily and way too sketchily. It's the kind of rushed psychological profile movies tend to hand us (usually voiced by "an expert in the field") when they haven't actually introduced us to the character sufficiently well.
In Richard Lester's defesne, I will say that the fact that there is no obvious suspect for at least the first half of the movie does add to the suspense. I had some fairly off-the-wall guesses re: Juggernaut's true identity. Suffice it to say that just because a given actor went on to play one of the most sinister villains in movie history--and just because he has a few moody moments in this film--doesn't necessarily mean that he's anything more than the honest Joe he's first presented as.
Richard Lester still had some clout at this point in his career, and the top flight cast he was able to assemble for this film is evidence of that. Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, Ian Holm, David Hemmings and Anthony Hopkins are all fine. The supporting cast includes such talents as Shirley Knight, Roy Kinnear and Roshan Seth(the latter two providing some genuine comic relief sometimes, while simultaneously suggesting something much deeper below the surface). As your not-so-atypical -70s anti-hero/hero, Harris is really quite good, but you may find yourself wishing that even his character had been a bit better developed. We learn way too late that he and the bomber have a history--one that could have been played off of significantly better than it is here.
Back stories don't get in the WAY of a good story. They help flesh `em out, and make you care about the characters. The screenwriters for JUGGERNAUT either disagreed with that premise, or some of their best scripted scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. You may find yourself caring about the fates of these people because of the sheer enormity of the threat. But it's much less likely that you'll care about them as individuals.
Sort of a shame, because with just a little tinkering, it could have been otherwise.
Rating: - "Of course there's a God" - Goldfish
This '70s disaster thriller has been rather unjustly forgotten over the years, while it is in fact far superior to other films of it's kind - such as the Oscar-winning megahit "Airport." The dry realism of "Juggernaut" is one its most winning elements - there is a relative lack of soap opera melodrama, with the focus kept squarely on the tense drama.
Basically this is a precursor to "Speed 2," as others have pointed out, in that it involves an act of terrorism carried out on a cruise liner. Instead of the over the top nonsense of that more recent movie, the filmmakers behind "Juggernaut" go to great pains to craft a meticulously detailed suspense thriller. Richard Lester - who, contrary to some accounts, directed the entire movie after two different directors were replaced during preproduction - allows for many quieter moments that help establish the great amount of work being invested by both the police and the crew members on board the ship. The result is a story that may seem slow-moving by today's standards. Make no mistake, this is not an action movie but rather a suspense thriller. That said, the initial boarding of the bomb experts (who must first parachute into the stormy ocean waters) is a prime example of some of the excitingly staged sequences.
One of the more conventional "disaster movie" aspects that "Juggernaut" adheres to is the all-star cast. Here you will find excellent performances from Richard Harris, Ian Holm, Anthony Hopkins, and Omar Sharif. As has been oft-noted, Mr. Harris in particular delivers srong work. One of the weaker plotlines involves the lead female character, portrayed by Shirley Knight. It is no fault of the actress, who seems to struggle with a rather ill-defined role. The problem lies in the "romance" between her character and the ship's captain (Sharif). Once we know the two are involved in a tryst, not much is developed throughout the film despite numerous scenes dealing with their involvement (or rahter, lack thereof as the captain appears utterly disinterested in the woman). Basically it seemed like a tacked-on attempt to appease the need to include a leading lady.
In a movie with such a palpable sense of realistic doom, there are still flashes of very sly humor. I particularly enjoyed the Titanic references that occasionally popped up. Roy Kinnear is highly amusing as the ship's activity director who must continue trying to bring good cheer to the 1,200 passengers who are well aware of the peril they face.
Definitely worthy viewing for fans of disaster movies (thrillers in general, really) OR of any of the distinguished actors that make up the excellent cast.
Rating:  - One of the very best thrillers of the 70s
Juggernaut was more or less lumped in with the disaster movie genre when it came out in the mid-70s, possibly because the making of the film itself seemed so disastrous. Originally a Bryan Forbes film, Forbes was briefly replaced by Don Medford (who had also briefly taken over The Guns of Navarone after Alexander MacKendrick was fired and before J. Lee Thompson was hired) before Richard Lester took over. While it's easy to spot some of the typical Lester touches (such as poor offscreen jokes added during the dubbing sessions), it's so unlike most of his other films that you constantly find yourself wondering who directed what.
Regardless of where the credit lies, the end result is a terrific thriller, with Richard Harris' bomb disposal team parachuted to Omar Sharif's liner with several bombs aboard while Anthony Hopkins tries to track down the extortionist in London. The bomb disposal scenes are genuinely tense, the characterisation surprisingly strong enough to undercut potential clich?s and Alan Plater's dialog quite superb, with the film offering both the required suspense and a neat little state-of-the-nation address of Britain in the early 70s. Really rather terrific.
Rating: - BOOM!
Here we go again with yet another disaster style epic from the 1970s. You know how the routine goes, don't you? Hire a bunch of big Hollywood names, some up and comers and some over the hill, and plop them down in the middle of a life-threatening situation. Irwin Allen made a career out of these types of films, weighing in with movies like "Earthquake," "The Swarm," "When Time Ran Out," "The Towering Inferno," and a bunch of other titles. Some chap named Ronald Neame brought us a movie about an ocean liner turned upside down by a tidal wave in the 1972 classic "The Poseidon Adventure," which Irwin Allen promptly followed up a few years later with "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure." Obviously, the law of diminishing returns kicked in with this much product floating around, and the disaster movie quietly slipped into coma until Hollywood resurrected the formula at the end of the 1990s with movies like "Armageddon," "Dante's Peak," and several others. One film that seems to have slipped through the cracks, however, is Richard Lester's 1974 thriller "Juggernaut." Here it is, given to us on DVD by none other than MGM. It's an interesting entry in the disaster genre.
It's important to note that Lester readily subscribed to the idea that a disaster film needs an all-star cast. To meet this goal he hired Omar Sharif, Richard Harris, David Hemmings, Anthony Hopkins, Ian Holm, Freddie Jones, Shirley Knight, Clifton James, Julian Glover, and Roy Kinnear to play major and minor parts. If you don't recognize some of these names, you'll likely recognize their faces. Taken together these actors have made probably a few thousand films. Anyway, the plot is incredibly simple. An ocean liner called the Britannic sets sail from England with some 1,200 passengers aboard. Unfortunately for these folks there are also seven bombs in seven steel drums scattered throughout the ship. The first sign of trouble arrives when Nicholas Porter (Holm), the chief executive of the travel company that owns the Britannic, receives a terrifying phone call from an individual calling himself Juggernaut. This man tells Porter about the bombs on the boat, and demands that the company pay him half a million pounds within twenty-four hours. If someone decides to drag their feet, the bombs will detonate and sink the ship. Yummy. Predictably the cops and the government enter the picture, namely in the form of Scotland Yard investigator John McCleod (Hopkins) and bomb disposal expert Anthony Fallon (Harris).
The passengers, despite the best efforts of Social Director Curtain (Kinnear) to cheer them up, soon discover exactly what's going on. They can't leave the ship, however, since a storm in the North Atlantic makes using the lifeboats a risky proposition. All they can do is sit helplessly by as Fallon and his crack commandos parachute into the sea and climb aboard the ship to defuse the explosives. Standing by to assist in the tricky operation is the ship's captain Alex Brunel (Sharif), his main squeeze Barbara Bannister (Knight), and McCleod's wife and two children who just happen to be passengers on the boat. Fallon soon discovers that Juggernaut is a crafty devil, an expert bomb maker with abilities that may well surpass his own. The movie from this point forward falls into the predictable pattern of showing us the passengers moving about the boat at the behest of Social Director Curtain, scenes of McCleod trying to track down Juggernaut back in London, and Nicholas Porter arguing with the government over the effectiveness of caving into the demands of the terrorist. Seeing as how "Juggernaut" is a bomb thriller, you can bet your bottom dollar that we'll see a scene where Fallon agonizes over which wire to cut. Red or blue? Times a wastin'!
I went back and forth with "Juggernaut." No one can argue with the level of talent here, as every one involved turns in a solid performance. Unintentional snickers, though, must go to Roy Kinnear for his spirited rendition of "Roll Out the Barrels." It's also nice to see Roshan Seth in a small role as Azad, a lowly servant on the ship who makes the ultimate sacrifice (love that Al Pacino haircut too, man!). What I do take exception with is the uneven character development. I suspect a lot of footage ended up on the cutting room floor in order to make the film move along faster because some of the interactions between characters don't carry much weight. You'd think McCleod would be on edge with his wife and kids on the boat, but he looks like he's ready for a nap. Too, the relationship between Bannister and Brunel seems superficial and doesn't add anything to the plot. Perhaps the greatest sin committed by Lester's movie involves what I call Annoying Kid Syndrome. I kept waiting for someone to strap McCleod's offspring to one of the bombs, or at least throw them overboard. These two are like fingernails on a chalkboard! But the tension works at times, Harris hams it up every chance he gets, and the ending is riveting despite being a cliché.
MGM saw fit to give us "Juggernaut" with a trailer as the only extra, sad to say, but the picture quality looks very sharp. It's letterboxed, too. If you're a nut for these types of movies--the disaster movies of the 1970s, that is--I say give this one a shot. I'm struggling about how many stars I should give the movie. "Juggernaut" hovers somewhere between three and four due to the problems cited above, but the fact that it redeems itself at the end should count for something. Most importantly, it lacks the utter ridiculousness of many of Irwin Allen's destruction epics. Let's round up and say four for the overall effort. It's a good way to spend a couple of hours.
Rating: - amazing
I'M THE BIGGEST FAN OF THIS MOVIE IN THE WHOLE WORLD ,THERE'S NOTHING LIKE THIS FILM,GREAT ACTORS,I LOVE THE MANIAC PERFORMED BY FREDDIE JONES AND THE EXPLOSIVES SQUAD TOO WITH A WONDERFUL,INCREDIBLE,AWESOME,UNFORGETTABLE RICHARD HARRIS AS THE HEAD OF THE TEAM,WITHOUT DISREGARDING THE LIKES OF ANTHONY HOPKINS OMAR SHERIFF,IAN HOLM...JUGGERNAUT I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU!!!I'LL LIVE FOREVER IN THE BRITANNIC AND I COULD SWEAR I'M LISTENING THE EXPLOSIONS...IS IT THE BLUE WIRE OR THE RED ONE ? I WANT THAT DVD NOW !!!
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