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Which wire do you cut, the red or the blue one? One of them disarms the explosives while the other wire will kill everyone in a massive explosion. All these decisions have to be made as a sadistic digital clock counts down the time. Do I cut the blue or the red wire? Tick, tick, tick.
Talk about being triggered. During the IRA’s bombing campaign in 1974, I was completely absorbed in the bomb disposal suspense thriller ‘Juggernaut’ whilst on holiday. I vividly remember watching that movie at the Watford Odeon, which had just undergone partitioning of the former stalls to make space for two small screen cinemas.
They say it was inspired by a fake bomb scare on the QE2 two years earlier, but Juggernaut is about a super scary bomb that is situated on a priceless transatlantic ocean liner known as the Britannic, which goes from Southampton to New York. The passengers are in the ocean too rough for them to be taken off with life boats so they are out of luck. The Irish bomber (his codename: Juggernaut) calls the president of the liner company and asks for a ransom, which seems overly simplistic at 500,000 pounds. Kind of like Dr. Evil asking for a million pounds. Richard Harris plays the scotch drinking romantic soldier type, who also portrays this Frenchmen with a reckless amount of bravery that goes along with a bomb and disarming it mentality. He gets parachuted into the ship with this team to do his tasks. David Hemmings is the gentleman with him giving support.
Juggernaut has some familiar names in the roster, including Harris, Omar Sharif, and Ian Holm. Who, in my opinion did a lackluster job portraying the ship’s captain in his romance with a gorgeous passenger (Shirley Knight). To add more color to the cast, Anthony Hopkins also plays the role of the Britanic’s Scotland Yard cop who’s having wife and children onboard, and Roy Kinnear plays the overzealous director whose idea of entertainment is so pop-culture he hilariously calls out, “Hi-de-hi!” while loosening his bow tie. The roguish Ugandan Asian steward with a white-Brit accent is played with finesse by Roshan Seth. Clifton James was cast as an American tourist, and he most definitely took off the Veterans character shoes of a glowering sheriff he played in the Bond films Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. Cyril Cusack gets no credits as the IRA veteran who gets interrogated in prison by Hopkins for possibly orchestrating the whole thing. In comparison to other characters, he did not pretend to be compliant so that makes his performance quite memorable. Richard Lester is the director and the writer is Richard Alan Simmons. There was a disagreement over the strenuously rearranged version of the script, which earned him the pseudonym Richard Dekoker that has stuck to him.
I sat agog with my pint of Kia-Ora and box of Maltesers, then made my way slowly out into Watford High Street.
I was crazy about Juggernaut back when I was 12. It certainly did not possess the glossy finish of epic disaster films like The Poseidon Adventure. And now, seeing it again, I am struck by the catastrophic weather – the overcast skies of Britishness, which instantly sign posted the fact that this is coming from Blighty and not California. The Britannic ship is very different from the sleek digital illusion of James Cameron’s Titanic. This is a real ship, with terribly unsightly rust stains on the hull where the anchor rises. The in-board scenes make it appear like a shabby cross-channel ferry. I sat, eyes wide, throughout this while consuming my Kia-Ora and Maltesers before eventually stumbling out into the dull weekday sunshine of Watford High Street. This street is full of Dolcis shoe shops and Clements department store and, oddly, is almost as glamorous as the Britannic with its all slightly worne down passengers doing their best to enjoy their vacation and not challenging any form of authority. Some years after, Lindsay Anderson’s Britannia Hospital was available as a metaphor condition of Britain offer. Perhaps we ought to have been contemplating that same idea about Lester’s ocean liner Britannic.
In any case, I sat down to this again, believing that seeing Juggernaut again will only be shockingly rude.
But no. Honestly, it’s a very complex, brutally honest, well crafted action thriller that is well knitted together and even with all the creaky, groany bits… the big blue/red wire finale was ridiculously intense. Juggernaut now has almost gritty social-realistic in style.
And watching it now, something hit me like being whacked over the head with a frying pan. “Juggernaut” is Irish- BUT SO IS RICHARD HARRIS! CLANGGGG! Not to mention, Harris’ character has to be Irish at least subliminally (his own accent is none existent and he is a Royal Navy officer) so there is non controversial stunningly balanced politics.
Seventies enthusiasts and memorabilia collectors will enjoy trivial matters such as the children playing on the primitive Pong computer game and the Pinball arcade machines in the ships lounge bar. (We 70s kids really did do a lot of playing on these games on holiday, or hanging around pennilessly looking at them.) And we got to admire back then some vintage “executive” desk novelties that cluttered the market of the time.
Some vague perspectives include out-of-place \”humorous\” lines that have obviously been added after filming. Aboard the Britannic while the ship is pulling away and the crowds are left standing on the quayside, we hear a sassy voice saying: “Right, Humphrey, my place or yours?” Oo-er. In the same way, a south Asian deckhand who has a dog on board mutters, “If you don’t get out of the way, I’ll have you in a bloody curry.” Yikes! And in another scene we hear Seth’s steward telling Knight how he has suffered racism in Uganda and in Britain, and how it is a “sad world for refugees.”
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