Juggernaut

I remember seeing Juggernaut when it first came out in theaters back in 1974 and I was sucked in rather nicely as the tension builds in this film. I'm not sure Alfred Hitchcock could have done better building the suspense.

Yet it could have been a lot better. The mastermind behind the plot to extort half a million pounds really doesn't have all that good a motive for what he does. And his actions towards the end of the film when he's caught and the jig is up so to speak, make absolutely no sense.

Juggernaut proceeds on many different levels, as his HMS Britannic sails for a cruise from I presume Southampton a bomb threat is phoned into the ship owners from a man identifying himself as Juggernaut. He wants the amount mentioned above or five strategically placed bombs will explode and sink the Britannic along with 1200 passengers and crew.

Scotland Yard under Anthony Hopkins looks to find the man, shipowners decide to pay, Captain Omar Sharif finds out and tells the crew and they try to keep the passengers minds off the strange doings on the ship. Special mention goes to Roy Kinnear as the cruise director for that particular job and his performance is great.

But primarily the film focuses on Richard Harris and his team of demolition experts. As he's mentioning often enough, he's the best at his job, the champion. He has to be because the stakes are at the highest possible level if he comes in second. And the man he's up against is a brilliant demolitions man himself.

According to a recent biography of Harris he was filming Juggernaut in the United Kingdom and flying back to the USA in intervals to film 99 and 44/100 Percent Dead. How his agent got him into that kind of deal God only knows, but I think he did better on the UK side of the pond.

Juggernaut is a good suspenseful thriller that probably would have been a lot better with more understandable motivation from the villain's point of view.