Exciting water-bound thriller about a crazy man who has planted explosives aboard a cruise ship and now in high sea with 1200 passengers . This big-budgeted disaster movie was professional and expertly directed by Richard Lester . It deals with a blackmailer who demands a huge ransom in exchange for information on how to disarm the seven bombs he placed aboard the transatlantic liner Britannic captained by Captain Alex Brunel (Omar Sharif) who while falls for a passenger (Shirley Knight) . As a nutty person plants explosives aboard a cruise ship and he mocks the crew about his plan over the wireless . He is asking for a £500,000 ransom , otherwise the bombs aboard will explode . An expert artificier Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Fallon (Richard Harris) is assigned to defuse them in the teeth of a howling gale , being helped by a competent as well as resourceful team (David Hemmings , Jack Watson , among others) . The countdown surges , while the explosive experts struggle to find the bombs . Meantime , back in England Supt. John McLeod (Anthony Hopkins) and other officers whose families are aboard races desperately to track down Juggernaut , the mad bomber . The greatest sea adventure in history has just begun !.
Nail-biting film that contains intrigue , unsettling scenes , thrills , emotion and it raises a fair amount of tension on its theme of seven bombs planted aboard ; resulting out to be pretty entertaining . This formula suspense movie belongs to catastrophe genre of the 70s , being the undisputed king , ¨The towering inferno¨ along with ¨Earthquake¨ , ¨Roller coaster¨ , ¨Two-Minute Warning¨ and many others ; this formula disaster movie was widely developed by Irwin Allen , previously winner of numerous Oscars for ¨Poseidon¨ until the failures as ¨Beyond Poseidon¨, ¨Swarm¨ and ¨When the time ran out¨ . Well-done drama that turns out to be an intriguing and suspenseful film . The tension is nice if not super-tense , though there are some boring sup-plots that undermine the action . As a sub-story involving an American called Corrigan/Clifton James is so negligible as to be simply not worthwhile . The film took its inspiration from an incident which occurred in 1972 when a man claimed he had planted a bomb on board the QE2 and demanded a ransom . The movie was shot mainly aboard a real ocean liner , the Hamburg had recently been sold by its German owners to the Soviet Unión . As the production company -David V. Picker and Denis O'Dell as associate producer- soliciting extras who would take a lengthy cruise in the North Sea for free , but with the knowledge that the ship would actually seek out the worst possible weather . Main cast , -Richard Harris , Omar Sharif and Anthony Hopkins- give excellent interpretations . With special mention for Richard Harris who steals the show as the skillful Lt. Cmdr. Fallon , the brave leader who leads his expert team of men appointed to a risked assignment . Support cast is frankly awesome , all of them give memorable supporting portrayals , it is formed by an all-British-secondary-star-cast , such as : Freddie Jones , Ian Holm , Julian Glover , Cyril Cusack , Mark Burns , Jack Watson , Roshan Seth , Kenneth Colley and Roy Kinnear as the ship's comical social director . And it appears uncredited : Cyril Cusack , Gareth Thomas , Michael Hordern and Simon MacCorkindale .
It displays a colorful and gripping cinematography in Panavision by Gerry Fisher , including persistent high-angle shots photographing the cruise ship , nice camera-work and use of close-ups on bombs . Intriguing and atmospheric score by Ken Thorne . Suspenseful and fine direction by a magnificent professional , Richard Lester . The project was originally to be directed by Bryan Forbes . After his departure , Don Taylor was hired , but departed four weeks before shooting was to begin . Richard Lester then came on board . Rating : Good and entertaining , it's a fairly watchable disaster movie .
