Juggernaut (film)
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| Juggernaut | |
|---|---|
| |
| Directed by | Richard Lester |
| Produced by | Richard DeKoker |
| Written by | Richard DeKoker, Alan Plater |
| Starring | Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, David Hemmings, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley Knight, Ian Holm, Clifton James |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | Sep 25, 1974 |
| Running time | 109 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | n/a |
| IMDb profile | |
Juggernaut is a rare British entry into the 1970s disaster film cycle. It was produced by David V. Picker Productions and released in 1974 by United Artists.
[edit] Plot summary
The story revolves around a fictitious cruise liner, the S.S. Britannic. When the ship is in the middle of the Atlantic, the owner of the shipping line Nicholas Porter (Ian Holm) receives a phone call from a man with a lilting Irish accent who refers to himself only as Juggernaut. Juggernaut tells Porter he has placed seven barrels of amatol (high explosive) aboard the Britannic that will explode and sink the ship by noon the following day. The barrels are boobytrapped and any attempt to defuse them will result in an explosion. Details of how to render the bombs safe will be sent in exchange for a ransom of five hundred thousand pounds, To show he is serious, Juggernaut arranges a demonstration, a series of small explosions on the Britannic's bridge that seriously injures two crewmen.
Porter is all for paying the ransom and saving the 1,500 passengers onboard (the seas are too rough to abandon ship). Commander Jeff Marder (Julian Glover) informs Porter that if he pays the ransom, the British government will withdraw his company's subsidy. Instead, bomb disposal expert Lt. Cmdr Anthony Fallon (Richard Harris) and his team must parachute onto the Britannic and defuse the barrels before the deadline. Meanwhile, Supt. John McCleod (Anthony Hopkins), whose wife and two children are onboard the Britannic leads the efforts on land to find Juggernaut.
After an attempt to defuse one of the bombs by robot fails, Fallon goes to his backup plan. Fallon's team will defuse one barrel each. Fallon will defuse the first bomb, informing his men of each move. If he fails and the bomb explodes, his men will know what went wrong. However, if two more bombs go off, the ship will sink.
Juggernaut is identified as Sidney Buckland (Freddie Jones), a disgruntled former government bombmaker. Fallon, after a series of setbacks, manages to locate the detonator but there are two wires left, one red and one blue, and he doesn't know which one to cut. He demands to speak to Buckland, his former mentor. Fallon's usual bluff exterior gives way to genuine fear as he begs Buckland to tell him which wire to cut. Buckland hesitates then tells Fallon to cut the blue wire. Fallon's wire cutter hovers over the blue wire and Buckland repeats urgently “Cut the BLUE wire.” Fallon goes with his instinct and cuts the RED wire. The bomb is defused. Fallon tells his men to cut the red wire and all the bombs are rendered safe.
An alternate ending to the film was shot and originally shown in British cinemas, with the film ending in an explosion after the wrong wire was cut. This alternate ending seems to have lost favour with subsequent showings of the film, perhaps due to Hollywood's insistence on cinemagoers not leaving the cinema unhappy. The result of this is that many believe only one ending was ever shot.de:18 Stunden bis zur Ewigkeit ru:Джаггернаут (фильм) sv:Juggernaut
