By Tim Greaves
During
the early half of the 1970s – post his final (official) stint as 007 – Sean
Connery made an eclectic array of script choices, ranging from the highly
astute (The Offence and The Man Who Would Be King, both of which
rank among his finest screen work) to the, er… questionable. (Yes, Zardoz, I’m looking at you). 1974’s
political potboiler Ransom (U.S. title: The Terrorists) falls somewhere
in between.
With
little more than a clutch of television works to his prior credit, Finnish
director Caspar Wrede wouldn’t seem to have been the most obvious choice to
helm a big screen thriller with a bone fide international superstar headlining,
and the plodding result does somewhat corroborate its director’s roots.
The
story picks up in the wake of a series of bomb attacks on London, and finds a
group of terrorists holding hostage the British ambassador to Scandinavia.
Meanwhile, a separate team led by Petrie (Ian McShane) have hijacked a British
plane on the icebound runway, Petrie’s intent being to whisk his comrades and
the ailing ambassador out of the country. Failure of the officials to comply
will result in the plane, along with its passengers and crew, being blown sky
high. It falls to Scandinavia’s head of security Tahlvik (Connery) – renowned
for his refusal to negotiate with terrorists – to intervene.
Sean
Connery’s magnetic screen presence as the hard-as-nails security chief coupled
with fresh-faced Ian McShane’s lively turn as the urbane terrorist who may not
be all that he seems keep things ticking along reasonably well, and director
Wrede generates sporadic moments of suspense during the opponents’ strategic
play-offs. The Norwegian locations offer up some terrific vistas for
Oscar-winning Swedish cinematographer Nils Nykvist to train his lens on (an
aerial pursuit through snow-dappled mountains is breathtakingly noteworthy) and
Jerry Goldsmith delivers a serviceable score, albeit one of the less memorable
in his vast oeuvre.
But
beyond this, I’m afraid, Ransom is
very much routine fare. It doesn’t help that the script confines Connery – indisputably
the picture’s biggest asset – to an office, treading water as he orchestrates
attempts by others to outwit the terrorists; he should be out there on the ice
himself, getting his hands dirty. By the time he steps into the fray at the
climax it’s a case of too little too late.
Network
Distributing have issued Ransom on
DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK as part of their ongoing “The British Filmâ€
collection. The new HD transfer looks tremendous (so clean, in fact, that it
gives the game away in a couple of instances where still images have been
inserted in lieu of live action footage) and the release is rounded out with a
pair of original release cinema trailers and a respectable gallery of stills
and poster art.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER BLU-RAY FROM AMAZON UK