Juggernaut

Director: Richard Lester
Screenplay: Richard Alan Simmons, Alan Plater
Starring: Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, David Hemmings, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley Knight, Ian Holm, Clifton James, Roy Kinnear
Country: UK
Running Time: 110 min
Year: 1974
BBFC Certificate: PG

The cruise ship SS Britannic leaves Southampton captained by Alex Brunel (Omar Sharif) and with 1,200 passengers and crew aboard. Unbeknownst to everyone there’s also a handful of large explosive drums on board, set to detonate if moved or tampered with by the bomber, who goes by the codename “Juggernaut” and demands a £500,000 ransom in return for the lives of everyone on board. Nicholas Porter (Ian Holm), of the ocean liner company, plans to pay, but police superintendent John McLeod (Anthony Hopkins) insists otherwise, despite his wife and children (Caroline Mortimer, Adam Bridges, Rebecca Bridge) being on board the ship. A team of bomb defusal experts (led by Richard Harris and David Hemmings) are sent on board to defuse the situation, whilst the police on land race against time to identify the bomber.

I love a good disaster movie, and the 1970s was resplendent with plenty of entertaining, bombastic affairs atop towering infernos, star-studded escapades throughout numerous airports and thrilling adventures both aboard and beyond the Poseidon. So discovering a previously unknown to me entry within the subgenre, and finding out it was set on a great big boat and boasted amongst its cast a young (or, at least, middle-aged) Anthony Hopkins, Ian Holm, Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, Clifton James, Julian Glover and Roy Kinnear, alongside a bevy of other recognisable faces, thrilled me to no end.

Whilst Juggernaut isn’t as flashy and extravagant as some of the other aforementioned epics, it more than makes this up with tension and gripping, nail-biting sequences, primarily centred around the attempts at bomb defusal. These are often lengthy, intense and intricately interesting, reminiscent of the heist from Rififi, and anchored by Harris’ Fallon, bringing a world-weary philosophical perspective as he rages against the world whilst selecting which wire to cut. In contrast, Roy Kinnear (known to me mainly as Mr. Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, or Rory Kinnear’s father from real life) handles the slightly too infrequent bouts of levity as the ship’s social director, attempting to maintain an enjoyable atmosphere for the guests in the midst of the ongoing crisis.

The character focus is unevenly handled, with the likes of Omar Sharif or Shirley Knight getting less to do with any relevance to the main storyline, so feel ancillary despite being the ship’s captain and a prominent passenger, respectively. Also, it’s odd how little is made of McLeod’s family being on the boat whilst he searches for the bomber. He passes the whole thing off as “all a blood lottery anyway” which makes the decision to have these characters be related an unusual one. It makes more sense as to why we follow his childrens’ exploits on board, although that’s perhaps a bad thing as they offer some of the worst child acting I’ve ever seen. It was fun to see Hopkins playing a character visiting incarcerated criminals for information, before the tables would turn a couple of decades later.

If it were revealed that Jan de Bont took a lot of inspiration from this for Speed, I wouldn’t be surprised, as the two have many similar elements. Where Speed is an improvement is with the significant presence of a melodramatic, scenery-chewing Dennis Hopper as the villain. Making the identity of Juggernaut be a mystery to be solved reduces the screen impact that a great movie villain can have. This isn’t that kind of film though, as shown by some of the fairly harrowing character departures. One person is lost overboard and deemed unretrievable, given the 5-mile turning circle of the ship, so their fate is left to the judgement of the waves, mercifully off screen.

It’s understandable why Juggernaut is less discussed these days than some of its more bombastic contemporaries, but that doesn’t mean it should be forgotten. It kept me engaged throughout, contains some captivating performances and impressive physical sequences, and should keep you on the edge of your seat until the climax.

Juggernaut is available in 1080p HD on limited edition Blu-Ray from Eureka! Video. Extras include a brand new commentary with British cinema expert Melanie Williams, interviews with film historians Neil Sinyard and Sheldon Hall, and a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Juggernaut by film scholar Laura Mayne.

Where to watch Juggernaut (1974)