Review by Coventry

Meet Alistair MacLean's Philip Calvert. He's the Scottish response to Ian Fleming's James Bond and particularly specializes in secret agent assignments at the Irish sea and off the Scottish East coast. Apart from their areas of expertise, Calvert and Bond have quite a few things in common. They're both reckless adventurers with an attitude problem and an aversion towards authority. They're both good with the ladies and don't mind randomly killing a handful of nameless bad guys. Calvert is send out to investigate the disappearances of entire vessels carrying gold bullion. It seems like there's a well-organized crime network active in area, run by an international shipping magnate and relentless enough to kill whoever tries to interfere. "When Eight Bells Toll" is a very decent and entertaining action/adventure movie, just don't expect the same dazzling tempo, ingenious gimmicks or impressive stunts as you would in an actual James Bond film. This is a totally unpretentious action flick with a strong lead performance from Anthony Hopkins (even though he doesn't really have the action hero allures) and various terrific choices of location. The film benefices from excellent photography, courtesy of Arthur Ibbetson, and several of the extended suspense sequences keep you literally on the edge of your seat, like for example the drowning helicopter and the finale inside a watery cave.