Easy to see how Sean Connery might have been drawn to this gadget-free suspenser, course correction after the increasingly fanciful nonsense in his last ‘official’ James Bond pic, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER/’71.* A modestly budgeted ‘thinking-man’s’ hostage drama, Casper Wrede’s overlooked action thriller hasn’t so much a bad rep as no rep at all. A pity since its low-key realism pays off in its own way, especially in a consistently well-staged, triple-twist third act boasting stellar cinematography from Sven Nykvist and pulsating Jerry Goldsmith score. A glossier package than you expect from its utilitarian Norwegian settings and sober mood (the country not named). Connery, sans Nordic accent (Nordic Scots?), is the National Security Chief facing a two-headed hostage crisis: Terrorist gang at the home of the British ambassador, and confederates led by Ian McShane at the airport on a hijacked plane loaded with passengers and a ticking bomb. With logistics & characterizations nicely worked out, Paul Wheeler’s original script finds Connery’s biggest obstacle in a British government all too eager to capitulate to every demand. No surprise, Connery has a very different game plan, one flexible enough to take advantage of any wrong turn. (Or was that part of the plan all along?) Two of the last act twists really hit their mark (a jack-knifing truck in a tunnel joltingly effective), but a final political twist was a bit opaque to these ears. At the time, audiences didn’t know what to make of this after those big Bond Spectaculars, but by now the film rates as something of a find once it gets going.
DOUBLE-BILL: *’Course correction’ not only here, but in three outlier pics made between DIAMONDS and this: THE OFFENCE/’73; ZARDOZ/’74 and as part of the all-star ensemble in MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS/’74.
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