Juggernaut

Rating:
Summary: Overlooked Disaster Film of 1974 showcases British Actors
Review: A taught tense adventure of a mad bomber who holds an oceanliner for ransom after he plants a series of bombs aboard. The villian is known, as each bomb has a signiture style. Richard Harris leads the team who attempt to defuse the bombs, only somewhat successful. As the countdown continues, the tension mounts, and it becomes more a cat and mouse game between the bomber and the police expert as they debate whether to cut the red or the blue wire. The final minutes are excrusiating.

I saw this on the big screen in 1974 and could convince no one to go to a free showing in Lansing, Michigan with me on a Sunday afternoon. An overlooked gem, I recall this film fondly. The plot is somewhat predictable, but Richard Harris is surrounded with major British actors who give good support to this tension filled adventure. Try it. It has to be better than any of the US dissaster picts of the period.

Rating:
Summary: Overlooked Disaster Film of 1974 showcases British Actors
Review: A taught tense adventure of a mad bomber who holds an oceanliner for ransom after he plants a series of bombs aboard. The villian is known, as each bomb has a signiture style. Richard Harris leads the team who attempt to defuse the bombs, only somewhat successful. As the countdown continues, the tension mounts, and it becomes more a cat and mouse game between the bomber and the police expert as they debate whether to cut the red or the blue wire. The final minutes are excrusiating.

I saw this on the big screen in 1974 and could convince no one to go to a free showing in Lansing, Michigan with me on a Sunday afternoon. An overlooked gem, I recall this film fondly. The plot is somewhat predictable, but Richard Harris is surrounded with major British actors who give good support to this tension filled adventure. Try it. It has to be better than any of the US dissaster picts of the period.

Rating:
Summary: Cut the blue wire
Review: After Richard Lester directed the two Beatles films he was a hot talent, much in-demand at the time. Unfortunately for his career, he spent a lot of time and money on the surreal 'The Bed Sitting Room', and found himself without a film for a few years. His version of 'The Three Musketeers' returned him to favour, and he followed it up with this, an unjustly-obscure bomb disposal thriller. Based on a true story (in 1972 the SAS were parachuted onto the QE2 to deal with a bomb threat which later turned out to be a hoax), this is a solid, interesting thriller with a fantastic cast - where else do you get David Hemmings, Richard Harris, Omar Sharif *and* Roy Kinnear in one film? And, for that matter, Ian Holm, Clifton James (J W Pepper from 'The Man with the Golden Gun'), Julian Glover and Freddie Jones! The film itself is a clever, taut thriller, much better than the 'disaster movies' the editorial review above compares it with. It's one of the classic 'bomb disposal' films. As the other reviewer mentions, it should really be released on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Juggernaut
Review: I had seen the movie years and years ago, it had not lost any interest as far as I can see, That is why I ordered it. I reaally enjoyed it. If you are looking for the a fast paced movie where it keeps you glued to your deat I would say look no further because of the cast it has some of the silver s creens greatest.

Rating:
Summary: Juggernaut
Review: i have been hunting this movie for many years.. i finally had a chance at a beaten up copy from my local video shop and was about to buy it when i found it on amazon.com in dvd format..

its an awsome thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the entire movie..

i would reccomend it to anyone who likes the disaster move genre..

Rating:
Summary: At last I have found you!
Review: I originally saw this in the theater when it first came out, and several times on TV. Unfortunately it seems to have disappeared from network programming, and my local video store both.
This was one of the most intense "cat and mouse" type thillers of it's day. The battle of wits between Fallon (R. Harris) and the bomber will keep your eyes locked on the screen to keep from missing anything. The plot and storyline are as intricate as the bombs themselves.
If you enjoyed the more recent movie "Blown Away" then you will enjoy this one. Blown Away used many of the same techniques developed in Juggernaut, and is the logical film decendant of this classic.

Rating:
Summary: An outstanding thriller!
Review: Like many of the other reviewers, this was a film that I recalled with great fondness.
I had seen it when I was younger...not even a teenager...but I remember loving it.
I had been looking for it forEVER when I read that it was being released on DVD.
I happily popped it in my DVD player and put my feet up.

You know how some movies are not NEARLY as good as you once thought? They're not as funny, not as scary, often plain stupid.

Well I'm happy to report that this film is terrific. It STILL raises the blood pressure, and will still having you guessing by the end.

Richard Harris plays the quasi-heroic bomb defuser, Omar Sharif the beleaguered captain and a young Anthony Hopkins has a one-note performance as a stressed out Scotland Yarder.
Roy Kinnear is a painful hoot as the Ship's Steward (think Julie on the Love Boat) who tries to raise everyone's spirits EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW THERE'S BOMBS ON THE SHIP.
Trying to get everyone to sing along to "Roll Out The Barrel"? Priceless.

The script is spare but witty. I loved the comment about "A Night To Remember".

This is among the best "disaster" movies ever made, and a terrific thriller.

Rating:
Summary: The subversion of genre conventions and narrative.
Review: SPOILERS BE ABOARD HERE. WATCH THE FILM FIRST. Arriving rather later in the disaster cycle of the early-70s -- and sandwiched between his two Musketeer excursions, I think -- Richard Lester's JUGGERNAUT met with almost complete disinterest from the critical establishment -- with the notable exception of positive reviews from Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris -- and little success at the box office. Lester's immediate problem in making the film was how to keep the presentation of the material original and compelling without departing too far (superficially, at least) from the associated conventions. He solves this to some degree at the narrative and dramatic levels by focusing on the minutiae and mechanisms of the central predicament and the needs of those characters involved in the life-death situation to derive some meaning from it. (There are many unusual "little bits" of character in this film.) Visually and structurally, Lester develops a complex correspondence between colors and objects and incidents, and, from first shot to last, enters a critical discourse with the logic/illogic of his narrative. What his strategy accomplishes here is nothing less than to overturn any simple understanding of what exactly "happens" at the end of the film, although the ending is seemingly right in front of the audience: the hero triumphs, the bombs are defused and lives saved, the formula is secure and in the ascendant. The narrative line seems clear from beginning to end (with an occasional digression). As the film proceeds, however, the attentive viewer notices more than just a few examples of "some rather horrendous plot and dialogue lapses" (as a reviewer elsewhere has mentioned), including a crucial wrenching "gaff" in the denouement which appears to substantially diminish the possibility for any positive resolution of the crisis aboard _Britannic_ -- and reduces the audience's suspension of disbelief in such a conclusion -- a resolution which seems to occur moments later in the film, regardless. The true horror of the central predicament in/of JUGGERNAUT is that survival for the hundreds aboard the liner apparently depends upon an either-or decision by a single character, Fallon (Richard Harris) -- a decision he is compelled to make on his best experience and intuition and at the risk of his life -- and the subsequent exact repetition of his choice by several other characters at a blind distance from him and from each other who are to follow his lead. The hopeful assumption shared by all -- with the exception of Fallon, who knows that what is to follow is actually a cascade of indeterminacies, and who is therefore without hope -- is that his local resolution (success-failure) will figure consistently throughout the array of bombs, i.e., that they are all wired similarly -- how could the narrative proceed if they are not? -- and that the next man in line will know what to do regardless of what happens to Fallon. At the last moment, Fallon changes his mind without telling anyone, makes the _other_ (unspoken) choice, and acts _against_ the careful visual correspondences to conflagration and survival Lester has constructed throughout the film. Reviewers note how seemingly ridiculous Fallon's behavior is without taking into context the profound isolation (and nihilism?) of the character. And narratively his silence doesn't seem to make sense at all unless it is understood as a tacit admission by Fallon (and the filmmaker) that the dilemma as portrayed is fundamentally inexorable, unsolvable, the "juggernaut" of the title: If the bombs are wired differently, then it doesn't matter what Fallon says or does, as each man in succession will face his own either-or decision, and the probability is that a bit more or less of half of them will get it wrong. That Fallon makes the "right" choice now (that everyone in succession follows him, that the intervention is successful and everyone saved, etc.) seems beside the point. The narrative feels "exploded" and the viewer senses catastrophe has occurred in the fabric of JUGGERNAUT. The few moments left to the film feel like a (quite beautiful) glide into a receding fantasy. While allowing his audience the narrative contrivance of a positive conclusion for his hero and those aboard _Britannic_, Lester has managed -- through a succession of visual/aural tropes and seeming logical inconsistencies leading up to and through Fallon's silence and decision -- to suggest very strongly why such a conclusion must be felt as unconvincing, that the worst has inevitably occurred, and that all aboard are lost. Given what the audience has been led to understand earlier in the film, the wordless last shot really says it all. I believe JUGGERNAUT is one of Lester's three great films, and one of the best films of the 1970s. THIS TITLE NEEDS TO BE RESTORED AND GIVEN A QUALITY TRANSFER TO DVD!

Rating:
Summary: Expertly executed British disaster movie/thriller
Review: This is a deftly handled thriller from veteran director Richard Lester. It inevitably begs comparison with movies of the ilk of The Poseidon Adventure, which is worthy in its own way, but this is in a far superior class. Its Britishness is its real asset - it avoids the schmaltzy, soapy feel of its American forebears in the world of disaster epics. Romantic elements of the story are treated with a grittiness that eschews all melodramatics. The psyches of the characters are not explored in depth, but are nevertheless flesh-and-blood characters, and we never get the feeling that their development is sacrificed to the suspense (of which there is plenty). In a supporting role as the ship's entertainments officer, Roy Kinnear elicits much pathos; Shirley Knight is affecting in a similarly tragic minor role, as the longsuffering mistress of captain, Omar Sharif, whose performance is merely satisfactory next to excellent star turns by (a young) Anthony Hopkins and Richard Harris. Film buffs will also delight in spotting a few other vintage British character actors in among the big names: Michael Hordern, Freddie Jones, Ian Holm and Julian Glover to name a few.

The pace is near-perfect (this is textbook film-making), never lagging or threatening to become tedious. The editing works to create maximal tension at just the right moments; the photography has a grainy and often extemporaneous documentary feel to it (some of the more seemingly spontaneous shots reminded me of Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy, however distant a comparison that might appear). Both editing and camerawork function effectively to hold interest and attention. Ken Thorne's score is subtle and in keeping with the tone of the film. In sum, this is an exciting and dramatic thriller, competently pulled off by a skilled company of talents.

Rating:
Summary: Great DVD Of A Little Known Gem
Review: Those of you wanting to upgrade your old VHS copies of Richard Lester's taut little thriller should now do so: MGM has given Juggernaut a sterling DVD transfer, in 1.66:1 widescreen, with good color balance and nary a blemish in sight (ah, the wonders of digital restoration). Hardly any edge enhancement either, as far as I can see. Way to go MGM!

David Hemmings (1941-2003) R.I.P.