mombasa_pete

I cannot believe the negative comments I am reading here. This is a complex, atmospheric and well-acted thriller, which fully captures the 1970s atmosphere of European terrorism, fashion and mannerisms.

The photography is stunning of the Norwegian snowbound landscapes, and Sean Connery gives one of his best performances.

And to cap it all there is a great - and I mean GREAT score by Jerry Goldsmith, one of this best.

Check the scene of the plane chase through the mountains, also the stylish montage of scenes involving London being struck by terrorism in the opening credits and the way the photofit of the terrorist leader gradually appears.

Goldsmith's score is so good, it is worth watching for that alone!

I own this film and the excellent soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith, and also have the book by Ira Levin.

This is one film that is a rarity that is based on an outstanding book, and succeeds in its adaptation because it follows the story all the way through. the only other case I can think of is Silence of the Lambs.

The acting by Peck and Olivier is not hammy or OTT as lesser reviewers here have criticized; they are finely tuned, powerful performances by two masterful actors with real presence and skill. Larger than life characters are needed for a project of this size and you need these larger than life actors to grab the attention from their first appearance.

Peck is entirely convincing as Mengele, you get a real sense of evil from him that few other actors playing Nazis have succeeded with, and he is counterbalanced by Olivier as the weary yet sprightly Nazi hunter who has an iron will under his flamboyant exterior.

As to some of the incorrect other postings, Hitler did have blue eyes, not brown. Mengele had an MD and a PhD, he was not a dentist. Read Gerard Posner's autobiography of him, see the actual photos of him, he even bears resemblance to Peck.

The atmospheric photography and use of European locations as well as the score build up a real feel of the Nazi era and its echoes, you really get a sense of the strangely compelling Teutonic evil that permeated Nazi culture.

In particular the flashback to the hospital scene with Mengele where he walks through his old ward, and also the scenes in Paraguay at the Nazi function and in Mengele's den.

Mengele's first appearance is itself a masterpiece in pure cinema style, he lands in darkness, at an airfield in Paraguay, suddenly the awaiting military jeeps light up the airfield with their headlights, illuminating Mengele is his white suit.

The score as already mentioned by Jerry Goldsmith is very Wagnerian in tone, one of his best.

Now it is being remade by the same director who made Rush Hour 2, so God knows how this will turn out, but he will need to have some really fine actors on hand to even begin to compare to this outstanding version.

Compare this film to a piece of modern trash like the new Mark Wahlberg conspiracy film "Shooter", and yes it is true that they don't know how to make them anymore.

Yes i cannot believe some of the negative comments I am reading here.

This is one of the best films ever made, period.

It fully captures the look and feel of 1940s wartime Britain, and has excellent locations, it is filmed in one of the most picturesque areas of the UK, I believe Herfordshire, and has plenty of local colour and humour.

It is also very exciting, with a powerful score by Lalo Schifrin.

It has a very fine cast too, all of whom give wonderful performances.

The action scenes are not cheap looking at all like one commentator below wrote, they are sweeping and thrilling, with authentic attention to detail.

The humour provided by Larry Hagman is a welcome relief from the intensity of the mission being portrayed and makes his bloody death scene where he gets shot through the helmet by Jean Marsh even more shocking.

He is also plausible as a an early day George Bush.

And the film also highlights one of the lesser known aspects of WW2 I don't think any other film has: the occupation of the Channel Islands by the Nazis! Watch it now!! I love this film!

I liked this film immensely, it has very nice scenery in Morocco, and strong characterizations, and in this case the introduction of the love interest actually drives the story along and makes it even more compelling.

Especially when the Legionnaires have to make a choice to side with the OAS the breakaway French military faction opposing deGaulle, this makes it fascinating! I thought the characters were well defined, and the film showed enough for us to get a true picture of Legion life: the brutal training, the marches, the NCOs, the officer class, the ceremonies, the skirmishes with the Arabs, the sense of loyalty.

Also the film had enough money spent on it to make a convincing portrait of Morocco at this period of transition, you have the colonial French architecture, and the spectacular desert scenery! I recommend any Foreign Legion fans to buy this film and watch it again and again!

Yes i really found this film distasteful.

I didn't like the Sandra Oh character, she really annoyed me. It is unlikely she would be accepted into rural Italian life due to the fact she is non-white. this was a bit of PC nonsense.

the film is also offensive to Italian men. For instance, the one man she (Diane Lane) has an affair is turns out to be a caddish cheat. But guess what: at the end your typically plasticky American brick-head turns up, all cheesy white smile and tan, and she finally finds what she wants all along: a real American man, and now she has colonized another part of the world.

In fact, this film is quite racist in its depiction of Italians and the way it subjugates them as either smarmy lotharios or backward peasants.

the photography was good but the film and its attitude were trash.

Yes pretty powerful stuff, entertaining, but not very realistic. But some fine characters and pace, not boring for one second! A black PC from some county force gets sent undercover to London (the Met) to root out some corrupt and racist officers. things go from bad to worse as he digs deeper into the goings on in a super bleak council housing estate, and he encounters some really seedy and corrupt police officers.

A bit stereotyped in its portrayal of all Met officers as corrupt in one way or another, and very cynical view.

He finds that the local CID officer is implicated in murder and they are disposing of bodies in a local crematorium.

It ends with a full scale riot and he has to drive an ambulance through a mob to rescue the corrupt DC from the mob, and then he batters him in the locker room of the police station.

He gets the Queens Police Medal for his efforts and as a cynical final scene when he goes back to visit some black woman he has had an affair with on the estate, we see he has made it into a key ring, some little black boy says "that ain't worth ****" and he says "that ain't half the truth"

This is a very chilling short moral tale, which commences as an apparent urban drama then turns seamlessly into a Faustian nightmare, with the emergence of the supernatural chilling in the way it gradually emerges.

Essentially, the driver of the car kills a homeless bozo in the car park, and decides to make off without reporting it, but as he attempts to leave the underground car park an endless series of wrong turns lead to him going deeper and deeper underground, and we see even the environment slowly changing around him and becoming more and more abnormal: wrecked, burning cars start appearing and the walls begin to close in.

the final terrifying scene ends with him coming to a dead end wall, and his car trapped.

Suddenly the words "on the left hand of god sits Satan" appear in glowing sulfur on the wall and he starts screaming: he is in Hell! The lights all go off and he is left in darkness, he tries flicking his lighter as he shivers in the darkness.

I have seen many Hollywood sickly sweet sentimental films, but this horrible confection really takes the basket! One thing which i hated beyond belief about this trash was the soundtrack, a sickly wailing orchestral noise which drowns out everything else, and is presumably intended to maximize the sentimental stabbing that comes with each turn of the story. It stuck in my head for days and even now thinking about it brings waves of nausea to me.

I like Coyote and Karen Allen a lot which only made it worse seeing them in this turnip! The film teaches us nothing new about anything and every single aspect of the story is predictable, we just know that the German boy is going to win over the stubborn audience in the climatic basketball match, and that romance is going to occur between the main characters.

It is the manipulative and twisted nature of the film's director, that hopes to win over audiences with his simple minded approach to the presentation, by emphasizing the most glutinous aspects of every little sickly scene.

I have rarely felt physically nauseated by any film, including many horror films, but somehow this film did the trick.

It's a right full-on pukefest and you'll feel like you've just had eight gallons of Aunt Jemima's strawberry cheesecake forced down your throat, followed by 5 liters of Macdonalds milkshake.

Excuse me, but i think i have to go and throw up again.

Avoid at all costs!

I disagree.

I have seen all 3 films of this incident, all have merits.

This is the only one to truly show the bloodiness of the final shootout.

We really see people getting riddled with bullets and blood all over the place, the other 2 shy away from this.

As to the other matter, the Israelis shooting down hostages. well I have also read the book, and in reality, some hostages were caught in the crossfire and killed. They disobeyed directions and stood up.

This was not the fault of the Israeli soldiers, it was the stupidity of the hostages to not listen and obey.

In a counter-terrorist operation like this it is inevitable there will be casualties.

This is the calculated risk.

just because viewers mired on the unrealistic world of Hollywood dross where the good guys always give the bad guy a chance to draw his gun first, and never miss a shot, may not like it, it actually did happen and will happen.

This is the real world: sometimes innocent civilians who don't do as they are told in a counter terrorist situation will be killed, by either side.

They should have stayed down.

The final scenes which show the end of the world and the apocalypse and the passing of all the biblical prophecies (the four horsemen, the trumpets etc) are NOT hallucinatory. They are supposed to be real not inside the main character's head.

Look at the way they are depicted, she is in a police station, and the people around her react to these things, another woman prisoner begins singing "hark the herald angel", the bars fall magically off the cell doors, the TV that is on starts showing the 4 horsemen and angelic figures, and we hear the sound of the trumpet and see everyone: the sheriffs, the prisoners reacting to this.

The point of the film is this: that religious fanaticism may be frightening. But what would be EVEN MORE frightening: what if the religious zealots depicted in the film, what if they turned out not to be misguided or wrong in their beliefs but to be RIGHT: that the Book of Revelations actually WILL come true! This is what makes the film so terrifying.

The very final scene where the 2 remaining characters, Will Patton and Mimi Rogers are in Heaven, shows that in the end even though the world has ended and the coming of the Apocalypse has passed, and the Second Reign of Heaven has come, that in the end, the Mimi Rogers character finally realizes that in spite of her previous choices, that she decides human free will and the right to question, to choose (i.e. free speech) must be paramount, EVEN if this means she is condemned to purgatory forever.

So she chooses NOT to embrace God, this is why Will Patton suddenly vanishes, he chooses to and goes to Heaven, but she allows her earlier doubts, about how God can allow evil and suffering, to prevent her from accepting God as the Saviour. She accepts He exists, but will not follow Him.

So THIS is the film's ultimate message: that human freewill may triumph even against the strongest powers.

I know this may be hard to accept, but it does not make the film anti-Christian but thought provoking.

I am Catholic and was not offended by the film at all, as it raises important issues. What is sad is that it is clear from previous comments on this site is that it went straight over many people's heads.

Read more, attend more University courses, is my advice.

Hi i actually have a copy of this movie, I recorded it on VHS when it was shown by the BBC in the 1980s! However all my tapes are in storage right now, as I am in the process of moving house in the next few months, after this is done, I will look it out, maybe I can make some copies of it. I think it is a very fine film and I really liked the fact it was also filmed in Holland, it made good use of the landscape, and had much beautiful scenery. It actually made me want to visit the town where it was filmed called DeRijp. I am now planning a trip there later this year. I am surprised we didn't hear any more about Brett Marx as he seemed a very good actor. It is a pity Canada doesn't make this kind of film any more. I think it is a very unique and poignant effort.

Yes one of my favourites.

Came from a time when Australia made the best cinema.

I enjoyed this immensely it has good music, good photography and the best acting imaginable.

I have it on video I had to order it direct from Australia. It was shown once on BBC a long time ago.

The plot is very fascinating too about an attempted coup in Queensland.

It also has some very good action scenes, and the main character is convincing as someone who still has his wits about him about how to deal with danger, for instance at the end he grabs a machine gun off a dead soldier and blows away another who is about to kill him. This is very plausible as he has the police training.

Yes

Very professionally made BBC thriller, with excellent locations I think shot in London, Scotland, Paris.

It has good atmosphere, about the renegade from a terrorist cell (I think Eastern European in origin) who hides out in UK and has to get police protection.

The trademark of the terrorist group is the Skorpion machine pistol a Czech weapon.

The music was very good, too, and it had a memorable opening credits scene of a tarantula spider climbing over the Skorpion gun.

I hope one day it gets released on DVD.

Other BBC shows to put on DVD:

Blood Money The Cleopatras The Borgias Spyship Badger by Owl-Light

I don't know why they don't, they could make load of money if they did, probably due to some stupid UK copyright law.

this was a real thriller, it even has a decapitation scene! It is filmed in Scotland mainly as far as I can remember, and has some really terrific acting and dialogue.

It is about a fugitive from I believe some terrorist gang who hides out up there, I cannot remember too much as it was so many years ago, just that episode 1 ends with a severed head turning up on someone's mantelpiece!!!

Another show the BBC needs to release on DVD.

They must be crazy not to!!!! It came out in 1982/1983 when the BBC Drama was putting out batches of good thriller serials, which made it the best TV station in the world, to this day!

It was very good scene, but I was most disturbed when the most beautiful woman I have seen, the woman police officer, she is tied to a ladder and we see close ups of her being burnt to death, even it is most realistic burning I ever saw, her skin bubbles and blisters and it is more realistic than anything I saw ever.

I was really shocked by this scene as i didn't expect this, I expect because it is not Hollywood but Canadian-French co-production they can make it like this, to have a main character you feel much sympathy for to be killed in such nasty way.

But it is very shocking for sure! To see such beautiful woman burnt to death before your eyes!!! I was very upset and disturbed. Does this occur in the game? What purpose was there to have her killed? What does it prove? That she is brave yes, but we already know that.

It was most horrendous.

How does this relate to the game??

Yes many dislike it but this film in the performance of McDowell manages to capture everything that was terrifying about the Nazi regime, there is an authentic atmosphere of dread and oppression, more so than any other film about WW2 made, how it was in occupied territories.

The stand out scene is the one where he interrogates the Michel Lonsdale resistance man, and chops off his fingers while cooking dinner, we don't see it the camera pans away, but it still is terrifying! More so than any Texas chainsaw film! Yes they really did things like this the SS! Watch it now!

This film is brilliantly made, and should be seen by more people.

It is very powerful in the way it shows one brave man's lone attempt to stop the Nazis in their tracks and Brandauer perfectly conveys the sense of silent outrage against the atrocities he sees rising around him.

It is heartbreaking to discover that he was executed weeks before the liberation by the Allies, and that no memorial exists to commemorates him to this day.

Everyone should see this film.

Also, the fact it is filmed on location in Germany makes it very atmospheric and you can feel the climate of fear and suppression very plausibly more so than in many other films set in this era.

Dennehy and LeVaillant are convincing as the Nazis.