Caught in the Net

It was let down by some of the acting and not just the children as some of the adults were not very good either, a bit stilted for both categories.

A good plot with plenty of dashing about in typical CFF fashion. Like the other reviewer I was amazed that at least one of the baddies did not get wet as this is a bit of a CFF baddie essential, usually at the end. I was amazed when I looked at the acting career of the lead boy character as he did OK for himself as an adult actor, have a look.

A must see of course for all CFF fans but still worth watching by non fans, children today might even like it.

CAUGHT IN THE NET is perhaps the most typical of all the Children's Film Foundation movies I've watched, yet that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It turns out to be a solid, involving and satisfying story in which a trio of good-natured kids, let by future Boba Fett Jeremy Bulloch, no less, find themselves tangling with a trio of poachers who've been divesting the local protected rivers of their salmon. The usual back-and-forth hijinks occur, with nice outdoorsy location photography and plenty of low-key peril. The ending works up an appropriate head of steam and the bad guys are certainly unlikeable enough too.

A Childrens Film Foundation presentation based on a screenplay by the documentary director Maxwell Anderson (who died before the film was released), 'Caught in the Net' show the visible influence of his background in the field with its vivid depiction of the West Country in which our young heroes cross the path of a trio of miscreants engaged in the fine old tradition of salmon poaching (the film betrays is age - SLIGHT SPOILER COMING - that with all that water available none of the baddies end up in it).

As usual the kids (headed by the late Jeremy Bulloch - best known as Boba Fett in the Star Wars films - in his days as a freckle-faced tousle-haired young tyke) show a lot more gumption than the grown-ups in undoing their nefarious scheme; while young Sue displays her innate breeding by exclaiming when confronted by a terse river warden "What a horrid man!"