Interesting British disaster film from the disaster decade - the 1970s! The story is simple: a luxury liner with over a thousand guests is told after advancing to sea that seven bombs have been wired throughout the ship. Should anyone try to tamper with them? BOOM! The story itself is handled well with a proper degree of suspense and tension, though the story seems a bit fragmented here and there and really much more could have been done with some of the characters. Don't get me wrong. We do get a good deal of character development. Omar Shariff plays the captain wanting to pay the ransom. He is not wholly one-dimensional as he has a mistress on board - Shirley Knight - looking quite lovely I might add. Aside from Knight, nothing is really done with any of the other passengers on the ship save the wife of Scotland Yard policeman Anthony Hopkins who remained in London. Most of the character development is with the people dealing with the crisis. Bomb expert Richard Harris and friend David Hemmings are flown out to the ship and have some harrowing scenes trying to defuse the bombs. Hopkins works tirelessly to try and find out the mastermind Juggernaut's identity. Ian Holm is head of the ship's business end and has surprisingly more heart than you might expect from someone like him. They eventually find Juggernaut and, well, you need to see the film to see what happens though admittedly I found the ending somewhat anti-climatic. Juggernaut for the most part is suspenseful and, I would say even more so, businesslike. It does what it needs to do but sometimes without the passion one might expect. It is ably directed by Richard Lester who directed some really fine films like A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, The Three Musketeers, and several others. He does inject some humor....not very liberally I might add, mostly in the characters of the cruise director played by Roy Kinnear - playing his role outwardly as the clown trying to buoy the hearts and morale of all these passengers yet feeling the same fear and turmoil they all do and Clifton James playing a somewhat against type Character as a thoughtful, intelligent American passenger. Both he and Kinnear have some dramatic moments. Harris also has some humor in dialog acting like....Richard Harris. Overall, Juggernaut is well-worth a look.
Review of Juggernaut
