A bunch of apolitical bad guys hijack a couple of oil rigs and hold a government to ransom . Sounds like a job for Bruce Willis or Steven Seagal . Well it would if if it was a recent Hollywood movie but this is a British film from 25 years ago so it's up to Roger Moore and James Mason to save the day
Sounds silly doesn't it and NORTH SEA HIJACK is both silly and bizarre . I mean we've got Roger Moore playing an eccentric cat loving homosexual ( Ffoulkes is definitely gay ) battling against American bad guys and just think what a silly scenario it is . It's bizarre because there does seem to be some attempt to add credibility to the story . The British prime minister is a woman ( Oh I wonder who that might be ? ) while government minister Tipping is obviously Michael Heseltine but this contrasts with such ridiculous things as no one seemingly to have heard of the Special Boat Squadron ( the naval SAS )and instead we're supposed to believe that Ffoulkes freelance outfit would be assigned a task like this . It strains credibility even further when the man in charge of the operation , an eccentric cat loving homosexual remember , spends most of his time gulping down scotch
Having said all that there is a slightly naive charm to this movie especially if like me you've seen far too many American movies that just feature a good guy massacring several thousand villains without even having to reload . If I have a serious problem there's a couple of unexplained events such as the boat crew deciding to bump off the hijackers and Kramer suddenly without any explanation realising there's a plot to kill him and his colleagues . This is rather lazy writing but not enough to ruin the movie totally
Sounds silly doesn't it and NORTH SEA HIJACK is both silly and bizarre . I mean we've got Roger Moore playing an eccentric cat loving homosexual ( Ffoulkes is definitely gay ) battling against American bad guys and just think what a silly scenario it is . It's bizarre because there does seem to be some attempt to add credibility to the story . The British prime minister is a woman ( Oh I wonder who that might be ? ) while government minister Tipping is obviously Michael Heseltine but this contrasts with such ridiculous things as no one seemingly to have heard of the Special Boat Squadron ( the naval SAS )and instead we're supposed to believe that Ffoulkes freelance outfit would be assigned a task like this . It strains credibility even further when the man in charge of the operation , an eccentric cat loving homosexual remember , spends most of his time gulping down scotch
Having said all that there is a slightly naive charm to this movie especially if like me you've seen far too many American movies that just feature a good guy massacring several thousand villains without even having to reload . If I have a serious problem there's a couple of unexplained events such as the boat crew deciding to bump off the hijackers and Kramer suddenly without any explanation realising there's a plot to kill him and his colleagues . This is rather lazy writing but not enough to ruin the movie totally