Terreur sur le Britannic

Juggernaut is a well done action / disaster thriller which combines some good performances with great direction and scripting. An extortionist calling himself Juggernaut has planted several bombs aboard the ocean liner Britannic and is threatening to sink the liner in heavy seas if he is not paid off. The film follows an official from the cruise company, a naval bomb defuser, and London police officials as they attempt to prevent a catastrophe.

What sets Juggernaut apart from a thousand other 'mad bomber' films is that to a large extent it approaches the threat from an official, even technical perspective. Rather than a maverick cop chasing the psychopath around the ship, we get highly suspenseful scenes of professionals trying to defuse bombs. The film plays up the difficulty of defusing a booby-trapped bomb, taking it beyond the film cliché of simply cutting the right wire. The heroes have to get through a variety of hidden snares within the devices before they even get to the wires. Indeed, the sub-plot involving the cruise official serves to remind us that this is not just a 'technical exercise,' that there really are lives at stake.

Furthermore, the film does not succumb to the temptation to overplay its villain or make him a flamboyant maniac. Despite his code name serving as the title of the film, Juggernaut does not figure that prominently in the plot. When he does turn up, the performance is quite understated, particularly when compared to the head of the bomb squad. (Only Richard Harris would think that downing a bottle of scotch is good preparation for defusing a bomb.) Indeed, one can argue that the bombs themselves serve as the primary antagonist of the film with their fiendish designs.

The acting in the film is quite good overall, even if the characters aren't always that well fleshed out. Richard Harris does a good job as the film's overall protagonist, lending him a sense of mordant humor that keeps him from becoming a stale action hero. Omar Sharif also does a good job as the ship's captain, even though his character is largely one note.

Juggernaut does have some weak points. At times, the investigation back in London is given short shrift, so that it is difficult to follow. Furthermore, there are one or two scenes contrived for dramatic effect that take away from the film's realism. In particular, one scene where a young child gets access to a restricted area of the ship strains credibility. Still, the film definitely stands as a minor classic in its genre.

Richard Lester directed this mad-bomber saga with such a cold, jaded eye, one might assume his approach totally unsympathetic or indifferent. Instead of being heartless, Lester is actually straightforward and compact, and the film is very involving. A transatlantic ocean-liner with 1200 people aboard no sooner leaves England's port then a genius-psychotic alerts the ship's representative that 7 booby-trapped bombs are set to go off in a matter of hours if he's not paid a fortune in ransom. Getting the bomb-experts aboard the ship via parachutes was a great touch--though once they're all in place, the movie has to bide a lot of time until the inevitable wire-cutting gets under way. Still, this is an exciting journey, filmed in bleak, damp colors, and Lester has done a terrific job at scaling down his actors. Omar Sharif (looking sensational in his Captain's uniform) had not been this real and human in years; Richard Harris, though he does his usual drinking and spouting off, successfully portrays the chief bomb-detonator as a swaggering man awash in a series of inconsistencies, acting with focus and tightly-wound energy. Good show! **1/2 from ****

It is New Years' Eve and six bombs are found on-board passenger cruiser BRITTANIC, below and above sea level. The anonymous perpetrator demands 500,000 pounds (a suspiciously low sum even in 1974.) Facing choppy seas and 'force 8 winds,' the crew are unable to unload passengers into life-rafts or rescue vessels, and so a team of bomb-disposal experts are flown in.

JUGGERNAUT is a well-paced film and can boast an all-star cast. Richard Harris plays the chief expert as a world-weary drinker who been in the job too long and faced imminent death so many times that he has lost all pretence for morality. David Hemmings has a smaller role as his assistant. A younger - but still grey haired - Anthony Hopkins heads the landside manhunt for the bomber. Ian Holm puts in a lovely performance as the compassionate head of the shipping company, who insists upon paying the ransom, even as the hard-on-terrorists British government threatens to withdraw its generous tax subsidies. Michael Hordern has a cameo, as too does Julian Glover. Rounding off the cast is an understated Roy Kinnear who plays the bumbling cruise director, offering hapless pleasantries to the passengers as well as falling short of a comfort after the bombs presence on board are revealed.

This is a very British film - these is little swearing, no resolute American hero, sandwiches are the meal of choice -offered to the bomb experts and the passengers - who are told relatively early of the threat - take the news with surprising grace, the British upper-lip prevailing over the typical Hollywood hysterier or sentimentality

This is a nice little rarity from the 70's - a disaster film that's actually good. It's about a bomber who plants several drums of high powered explosives on a British ocean liner and threatens to use it to sink the ship if payment of a half million pounds is not made. Cue Dr. Evil.

What's interesting about this movie, is that instead of boring us with the usual soap-opera antics (the edge-of-divorce couple, the terminally-ill child, etc.) the cruise itself turns into a disaster for everyone before the bombs are ever revealed. The ship immediately sails into a storm to which the captain learns that the new gyros they upgraded to are not working, causing the ship to pitch heavily, getting most everybody on board seasick. The weather outside is bad, so all the guests are moping around, shutting themselves up in their cabins or braving the lounge and the overenthusiastic entertainment director, played by Roy Kinnear, who always seemed to find himself in these kind of roles. Those who venture out onto the rolling decks can't prevent their shuffleboard games from drifting into the tennis court, both of which are placed in an area about the size of a three-car garage. In short, these people could use a good bomb crisis to liven things up.

Richard Harris plays the bomb-squad expert who is called upon along with his team to disarm the explosives. Perhaps 'expert' is not the right choice of words, as his crew end up setting off a couple of the bombs in trying to deactivate them. That, and the fact that Harris drinks on the job and at one point recommends throwing in the towel. And that is what makes this movie work - there are no typical heroics you would find in all the other standard-issue disaster flicks of the era. Even the paratroop-like arrival of Harris' team is sufficiently deflated when one of them clumsily loses his dive mask as he jumps from the plane. The ship's captain (Omar Sharif) is carrying on an adulterous affair, some of the bomb squad members get seasick on the ship, and the entertainment director eventually just gives up trying to raise the morale. Nobody is allowed any glory. One of my favorite moments is when a young boy, after being given a book about ships to pass the time with, correctly identifies an innocuous subtly-marked raised flag noting the presence of explosives on the liner, then nonchalantly exclaims "That's 15 points for me."

The movie does eventually button down and give a good, honest and tense bomb-defusing sequence at the end. There's the usual 'which wire to cut' business, but by the time the movie gets there, it has well established that it's not going to be quite that predictable about it. A good British cast is included as well. In addition to Harris and Sharif (who isn't British), Ian Holm and Anthony Hopkins are present, playing landlubber executives trying to help catch and prevent the bomber from fulfilling his threat. I couldn't find Michael Caine, however. He might have been off making a Jaws movie or something. At any rate, this is an excellent thriller that also provides some choice sardonic humor along the way.

This is one of those films that I was crazy about as a kid, and pleasantly surprised by years later. There are solid performances from an impressive cast including Richard Harris, Omar Sharif and Anthony Hopkins. The camera work is excellent as well, with some creative macro shots that help clarify the technical details and keep the tension high. Though it requires some patience and attention on the part of the viewer, this film is full of subtle details and is well worth the effort.