Lejink

The late Tony Scott's high-tech conspiracy thriller stars Will Smith as a labour-rights lawyer who we first see boldly confronting a mob-connected Italian restaurateur with an incriminating video tape which will assuredly put the mobster in jail. Although this scenario is then put to one side, don't forget about it completely...

The real meat of the movie however revolves around another video tape, this time of an ordered assassination of a prominent senator, Jason Robards in a cameo appearance, about to vote against far-reaching invasion of privacy bill backed by Jon Voight's ruthless senator who stands to personally benefit if the bill is passed. Heading up a covert government agency dealing in surveillance, when the tape is planted in the unsuspecting Smith's bag of Christmas presents for his family, Voight immediately mobilises his team to recover the tape, half of them techno-geeks who use everything from helicopters to six types of bug on clothing alone to shadow and eavesdrop on Smith, the other half a cold-blooded hit-squad who follow their orders with no compunction for human life.

The way Smith's personal life is systematically torn down, (you know that feeling when your card is declined when making a transaction!) is only too believable in our contactless world today and then when his main informant, ex-girlfriend Lisa Bonet is eliminated he has to go on the run. Finally he connects with the only person who can help him, the recently deceased Gene Hackman's ex-agency operative who himself went dark and has stayed under the radar and who has waged his own one man war against his former employer ever since they abandoned him after a failed operation in Iran.

From there to the end, the pair are pursued by Voight's merry men but between them devise a cunning plan to rescue the situation which will take them back to that Italian restaurant I mentioned earlier and tie everything up in a big bloody bow at the end.

Anticipating Matt Damon's series of Jason Bourne's movies in the next decade, this is a breathless, action-packed thriller with director Scott skilfully ramping up Smith's paranoia as his world starts to implode. Yes, it gets a bit silly sometimes as he externally descends a twenty storey building and runs in the face of rush-hour traffic in only a dressing gown and boxer-shorts and there are a couple of unnecessarily titillating sexist scenes (is there really a lingerie shop in Baltimore where the beautiful female shop assistants serve the public in their skivvies?) but just when it seems like it's running out of steam Hackman happens along to add his customary gravitas to proceedings.

Smith is surprisingly effective as the fast-thinking, fast-running lawyer, Voight convinces as the corrupt minister leaving Hackman to balance the ticket by fully entering into his maverick one-man Special Ops team.

This was excellent escapist entertainment with just enough about it to make you question who might be watching you and now more than ever how easily cyber-crime can impact and disrupt our daily lives.

My story about The Who goes back to 1976 when I was 15 playing golf at the top end of Glasgow when the band was playing Celtic Park, climaxing a big all-day day concert therenyeat,. I think it was called "The Who put the Boot in" tour. And any of my cousin and I hear the music wafting up from miles below and decided we had to be there so we raced home, dumped our clubs and raced down to Parkhead on foot. By the time we got there, they'd already started opening the exit gates so we rushed in... just as Townshend hit the last chord and the laser beams started splitting the sky.

Anyway I've always had a soft spot for the band and have been meaning to watch this biographical documentary on them for years, in fact I was sure I'd already watched it but apparently not.

The film is haphazard in construction, mixing up live performances, studio spots, snippets of interviews with individual band members and one chaotic extended group chat with Russell Harty which was almost as boorish as the infamous Sex Pistols expletive-laden set-to with Bill Grundy. Townshend naturally has most to say, closely followed by Moon the loon, with Daltrey and Entwistle seemingly happy to let the music do the talking.

Some of the clips I'd seen before but many I hadn't and they certainly saved the best for last with a dynamic version of "Won't Get Fooled Again" complete with Pete's famous knee-slide. Rather like the Beatles on the Apple roof, they went out in style, as although they didn't know it at the time, the supposed to be Keith Moon's last performance with the band as he died just a few months after this.

I only complaints would be the inclusion of too many versions of "My Generation" and nothing at all from the mighty "Quadrophenia" double album or even from the later "Who By Numbers".

The film doesn't go into details about the band's sometimes fractious inter-relationships, it simply promotes their music. In the end that's all that fans like me care about and in that respect this feature did its job well.

Another fun and frothy episode of the Roger Moore and Tony Curtis vehicle "The Persuaders" although twenty episodes in, I've yet to see anyone call them by that name or see the pair do anything to even justify it.

In this episode, Brett wakens up in a Swiss hotel room after what he thinks is a particularly heavy bender only to learn that he's married to Catherine Schell. Even drunk, that's the kind of thing you think you'd remember, but no, the good Lord isn't all-seeing on this occasion and is completely oblivious to doing the deed. Schell has the paperwork to prove it however and so he has to gradually get used to the idea of being a married man.

After he explains his position to an incredulous Danny, he then finds himself manipulated into a kidnapping plot by Schell's designing brother. The snatch will be at Brett's country house where a pre-arranged top-secret inter-governmental meeting with an old school-chum of Brett's, who's grown up to be a prominent Scandinavian diplomat, is due to take place.

We see Brett and his new Lady gradually warm to each other but of course she has to slightly reluctantly play her part in the nefarious plot, but just as the trap is about to be sprung, Danny comes racing to the rescue. It all climaxes in a car v small-plane race with our heroes, or more accurately speaking, their stunt men, clipping the villains' wings in time-honoured fashion.

As ever the badinage between the transatlantic stars is what carries the programme. This one I felt could have gone in a different and better direction after the initial premise was set up, but then this show was always the lightest of the many shows which came under the ITC banner. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing but just once I would like to have seen a slightly darker episode giving the two superstars a bit more to work with.