capone666 JuggernautTerrorists rarely take cruise ships hostage because governments don't pay ransom on people who take cruises.Back in the 1970s, however, commandeering cruise ships, like the one in this thriller, was commonplace.Passengers on the SS Britannic are thrown into peril when a terrorist named Juggernaut informs the ship's owner (Ian Holm) that there are explosives on-board set to detonate if he doesn't receive a healthy ransom.Meanwhile, a bomb specialist (Richard Harris) is airlifted in to defuse the situation, while a Scotland Yard detective (Anthony Hopkins) works on tracking down the mad bomber.Light on Hollywood theatrics due to its British production, this fictional account of a real life event that turned out to be a ruse is grounded and gritty in its storytelling. The classically trained cast also brings a high-level of professionalism to the crisis.Thankfully, the on-board entertainment tends to get a lot better under terrorism. Green Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

Stephen Abell On paper, this film should not be as monotonously sleep-inducing as it actually is. That isn't the roar of the engines or the crashing of the waves against the ships hull you hear... it's the audiences snoring...The story tells the tale of two courageous men... bomb disposal technicians. Who have to cope with, not just one, but several cleverly constructed devices onboard a cruise liner. This should, in itself, bring in a multitude of ways to create an interesting film. Tension, suspense, panic, and fear at the very least. Well, no! The very least appears to be a total disappearance of these elements. The way most of the movie is filmed is in such a fashion to hinder these feelings untenable. For example, the scene where the heroes board the ship. This should have been one exciting moment as the ship is in rough seas and the men are parachuting in from a plane... wasn't a helicopter available(?) Of course one of them ends up in the sea and has to clamber onto a rope to survive. However, this is rendered boring by bad editing and worse filming as the scene is shot from a distance and the sea spray renders the shot near impossible to view. There are a lot of distance shots throughout. This, at times - though not always, adds interesting camera viewpoints... however, there's usually very little happening in these instances; a man walking through an office, a group of passengers dancing, a man walking through a bank, etc... I believe the director was going for a realistic approach but on the whole, realism is boring. I want my films to invigorate me, at least a little. Take the ballroom scene when all the passengers are informed of the explosive predicament they are in. Do they panic? Do they get anxious and upset? Do tempers and attitudes start to flair? No, they just mope about; evidently, the pay for extra's was non-existent after paying for the good cast. I've never seen a group look so bored. So much for striking terror into the hearts of people!Even the actors appear to suffer from the same malignity of dullness as their characters often appear two dimensional and flat. The worst is Omar Sharif who's rendition of Captain Alex Brunel is so laid back and paper-thin he's almost not there. Poor Old Roy Kinnear is just annoying as the Social Director of the cruise. His jokes are worse than bad and his delivery is terrible. The only thing funny is his name, Curtain - a good name for a person who arranges the entertainment; though I do wish they'd dropped the curtain at the start of this disastrous movie.Not even the likes of Richard Harris, David Hemmings, Anthony Hopkins, and Ian Holm can lift this out off the doldrums... at times, Ian Holm looks as if he could join the audience for a snooze. The best actor in the whole film, who actually adds an engaging spark, is Freddie Jones as Sidney Buckland. If only the rest of the cast and characters were as appealing. However, one character in a busload is too little... and he's not even a major character.There are much better films of this ilk out there so I'd recommend you check out one of them rather than this film.

Jaybird248 "Juggernaut" was a well done thriller, but I have a special connection to the film, well, actually the ship used to film it. The fictional "Brittanic" was actually the German liner, Hamburg. The ship was nearly new when the first energy crisis hit and jacked fuel costs sky-high. The Germans were desperate to do anything for revenue, including renting their liner for a terror at sea film. Not much after, they sold the ship for cents on the dollar to the Russian Black Sea Line, which changed her name to Maxim Gorki. It was then I sailed on her on a cruise from New York to Bermuda. Fascinating experience, including KGB agents posing as "hosts". Their real job was to watch for crew defections. Years later, the Gorki was the site of a great power summit conference, but soon after that, she ran aground and was eventually scrapped. Just a bit of movie trivia. Now back to our reviews.

moonspinner55 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 ****